03 · The exchange layer

Getting information out of one system and into another is the hardest problem in public safety technology.

It is close to the only thing Emerging Digital Concepts has worked on since 1997.

Who EDC is

Nearly thirty years of making systems talk

EDC was founded in 1997 by former IBM systems engineers. The work has been consistent since: connecting distributed systems that were never designed to work together, for customers who cannot afford for the connection to fail.

Public safety interoperability is their deepest practice. Their flagship product, NG-CAD-X, is a CAD-to-CAD exchange, and EDC describes their National Capital Region deployment as the country’s largest and longest-running CAD2CAD interoperability exchange.

They are a small engineering firm by choice. Their own framing is that it gives them a flexibility large integrators cannot match.

What NG-CAD-X does

One exchange, five things

A CAD system is built to run one agency. NG-CAD-X connects those systems to each other, so neighboring jurisdictions can work an incident together without picking up the phone.

  • See units that aren’t yours. Real-time status, location, incident IDs, and event types from neighboring jurisdictions.
  • Dispatch across the line. Send remote units using your own CAD’s run recommendations and dispatch procedures — not a separate workflow.
  • Share the incident, don’t retype it. Mutual aid and auto aid calls carry current incident details between agencies, and incidents can transfer between CADs outright.
  • Message the other center directly. Terminal to terminal, between users on different CAD systems.
  • Back each other up. CADs on the same exchange can serve as each other’s backup when one goes down.

The plain version: no call transfer, no retyping, no phone call to the next county to ask what they’re seeing.

Coverage

Your CAD is probably on this list

NG-CAD-X works with the CAD platforms most large agencies actually run.

CentralSquare

  • Enterprise CAD (formerly TriTech)
  • OSPS (formerly SunGard OSSI)
  • TC CAD (formerly Tiburon)

Motorola Solutions

  • PremierOne CAD
  • FLEX CAD (in development, formerly Spillman)

Octave

  • I/CAD
  • OnCall
  • formerly Hexagon

Tyler Technologies

  • New World CAD

Infor

  • EnRoute

Keystone Public Safety

  • CAD

Mark43

  • CAD (in development)

Don’t see yours?

Tell us what you run and we’ll tell you straight.

Contact Sales →

CAD Connector

Why the exchange layer matters to language

EDC’s core product connects CAD systems to each other. Inside Prizym, that same integration engine does something different: it carries language into the CAD record.

This is the capability called CAD Connector. When a call is interpreted, a summary of what the caller reported is placed directly into the CAD record for that incident — not in a separate system a dispatcher has to go look at.

That distinction is worth being precise about. NG-CAD-X moves incidents between agencies. CAD Connector moves language into the record. They share the same engineering and the same deep CAD-side knowledge, which is why EDC is the partner that made it possible.

This is not a roadmap item

CAD Connector is live and in production.

The agencies running it have not authorized us to name them. That is normal in public safety, and we are not going to work around it with a vague hint about a “major metropolitan agency.” When you are ready, the better proof is your own CAD: we will show you what lands in the record.

The record finally includes what the caller said.

Ask most centers where the language content of a call lives, and the answer is: in the recording, and in whatever the calltaker had time to type.

When the summary lands in the CAD record instead, it goes where everyone already looks. The responding unit sees it before arrival. QA sees it in review. The incident report has it without anyone reconstructing it from audio.

Nobody has to open a second system, because it is in the first one.

See what lands in your CAD