Your callsign and MMSI may not be unique

Thistle

Thistle

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I asked Ofcom why my boat appears not to be in the ITU MARS database. They agree that my licences are correct and up-to-date. They are trying to ensure that my details are re-instated to the database. An e-mail reply from Ofcom today included the information that

"<span style="color:red">Due to customers now being able to apply online for Ships Radio licences this has caused the system to at times create duplicate call signs and MMSI numbers in our system. As you will fully understand this creates a major safety of life issue for all vessel owners ...</span>"

I think we should all search the ITU MARS database for our callsigns and MMSI numbers to ensure that (a) they are there and (b) are correct. Any problems should be reported to licensingcentre@ofcom.org.uk.
 
"<span style="color:red">Due to customers now being able to apply online for Ships Radio licences this has caused the system to at times create duplicate call signs and MMSI numbers in our system. As you will fully understand this creates a major safety of life issue for all vessel owners ...</span>"


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So it was not due to [--word removed--] database schema and transaction design then?

As the means of avoiding problems like this have been understood for decades and should be known by anyone who is even half competent, I presume it means they didn't have anyone even half competent to design their database system.
 
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As the means of avoiding problems like this have been understood for decades and should be known by anyone who is even half competent, I presume it means they didn't have anyone even half competent to design their database system.

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As if!

The general lack of knowledge in this industry amazes me. I really have no idea how some people actually manage to get work writing applications and web software, because most people doing it are quite simply crap at their job.

Very annoying.
 
I think I may have been one of the first to discover this, way back in about April last year. I applied online for an MMSI, was given one which was the programmed in to my new set, and I then found it was 'owned' by another vessel.
Shortly after Ofcom admitted to me that the system had screwed up, they issued a statement saying that many people could be affected and that they were doing an audit to identify the duplicates. I got this all publicised in S.T. at the time.
But this was last summer! What on earth have they been doing since?
 
[ QUOTE ]

"<span style="color:red">Due to customers now being able to apply online for Ships Radio licences this has caused the system to at times create duplicate call signs and MMSI numbers in our system. As you will fully understand this creates a major safety of life issue for all vessel owners ...</span>"



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Sign of a public sector union trying to maintain jobs. Why not get the computerisation right and do away with manual licensing altogether? Plus a few jobs.
 
I bought (another) boat 18 months ago: I applied on line to have the ships license transferred to me, No problems. About 3 months later I had a letter from Licensing Centre saying I could not use the allocated call sign as it was already in use elsewhere. The previous owner had given up sailing due to ill health, so had not taken it with him.

I suggested to RLC that the call sign had been in use for 20 years on this vessel, and did not want to give it up. (not that it made any real difference to me). No, it was 'already allocated' to someone else, and here is the new Call Sign.

So what happened? Have there been two boats using the same call sign ever since the prevous owner licensed it in the late 80's? How come my boats Call sign had been re-allocated?

It doesnt matter - I am just curious to know how they cocked it up. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Getting it fixed is actually a somewhat lengthy process.

I agree re: the cr@pness of the database design (my own very first thought!) and join in the sad shaking of heads at how this ever happens. Too many folks lacking even basic training /reading on database design and this affects ALL sorts of things.

Once the basic conceptsa are in brain then you can't even scribble back-of-a-fag packet stuff without it automatically being in at least 3NF...

Mind there are programmers who haven't had to touch a db til they were well past 40 - combine that with NotInventedHere syndrome tendancies and you get some horrible things....
 
Behind the screen is an ERP system from a well known global provider of ERP systems...... so they probably had very little control over the schema etc.... I know this, for at one point, the screen even showed the ERP system's branding rather than the MCAs!!!!!

what is quite apparent is that they didn't have anyone who knew how to surface an ERP system to the general public, or probably more importantly (and relevant), to define and document processes and systemise them correctly prior to developing a solution.... I don't think they were really lacking coders or DBAs... I think they were lacking decent systems and process analysts.....

Basic 101 stuff for a good IT team I'm afraid...
 
<<< Mind there are programmers who haven't had to touch a db til they were well past 40 >>

I employed a programmer to build a complex and large Access database for me. His performance doing this was fine and I had no complaints. After several weeks I was discussing it with him and demonstrated what I wanted on an Excel spreadsheet. He said that he had no knowledge of Excel, which I found surprising, so I pushed him a bit further. He spoke literally - he knew absolutely nothing about Excel and had never used it. Specialisation or what?
 
Whether or not their process were correctly analysed and documented or not is likely to be pretty irrelevent to this particular problem.

It will be a simple technical problem. If you are given out a unique identifier you have to design your transaction so that the same identifier can't be given out to a concurrent process. The simplest technique is just to lock the piece of information until the value has been obtained and incremented for the next process. In this case, it's likely that throughput issues and the need to avoid wasting unused values would make it slightly more complex but it is still bread & butter stuff.
 
Thanks for the tip, now I know how many other boats have the same name as mine. Luckily the MMSI's seem to be unique.
 
Ever worked with a large enterprise class ERP?

I agree that if you were coding the environment yourself, or working with a smaller ERP, thats exactly what you would do, but in this case its unlikely they would be accessing the db directly.... it would be through a process automation driven by the ERP application and therefore they wouldn't be doing any record, file, data value or indeed any other type of locking directly.

The appn involved in this case would handle all that.... they just didn't configure it properly... they obviously didn't understand the process properly.... and therefore left themselves wide open to failure... this wasn't the only problem, there were others, such as inability of many users to access the final outputted document.... it was quite obvious that process was where they had gone wrong.... indeed it was so complex that clearly no use-case testing, UAT, Systems Testing or indeed anything else bog standard had happened either.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Behind the screen is an ERP system from a well known global provider of ERP systems...... so they probably had very little control over the schema etc.... I know this, for at one point, the screen even showed the ERP system's branding rather than the MCAs!!!!!

what is quite apparent is that they didn't have anyone who knew how to surface an ERP system to the general public, or probably more importantly (and relevant), to define and document processes and systemise them correctly prior to developing a solution.... I don't think they were really lacking coders or DBAs... I think they were lacking decent systems and process analysts.....

Basic 101 stuff for a good IT team I'm afraid...

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More likely Morgana, they didnt get round to inputting all the previously manually issued call signs, or only part did it, or allowed some manual input after computerisation.

In my experience (which I admit is limited) the computer problems I had at work came from misguided attempts to tailor a standard computer system to an existing way of working when life would have been much simpler adapting the way of working to a standard computer system. Trouble is the theory that people have to sign in to a new system rather than be told they have to accept what they are given.
 
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