The chaps from NavCanada that came over to help the introduction of EFPS at Heathrow told us they had designed their system primarily to address the co-ordination difficulties that remote airfields in Canada had experienced communicating with the Centres. Of course, NATS has (so far) failed to equip TC with a system that can properly interface with the EFPS equipped airfields. The full potential of EFPS is therefore not realised, and extra tasks have to be undertaken which the "full system" could do. The biggest one is the transfer of non-airways inbounds, outbounds and overflights which have to be co-ordinated by telephone (and an electronic strip created) when the full system could do it for us.
Some of the money saved in ATSA salaries will be needed to replace the touch screens that are now wearing out. After 8 months of bashing the same area (up to 80 times an hour) we have several screens with noticable dead spots and others where the plastic surround is cracked and broken. At least six are ready for replacement.
At least I don't go home covered in felt tip pen marks
SM