README.md

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APPEND X A

CASES
FOR

ASSIGNMENTS

ABACUS PRINTING B Orders are printed and become internal job tickets
_— which are used to schedule and monitor work
COMPANY progress. All order/job tickets go to the scheduler

who sorts and prioritizes them to develop a produc-

This case describes a currently manual process. Your 00 «hedule. Fach Monday, he gives the first person
job is to automate the order processing, scheduling, i; the work chain (there are three possible sequences
and customer service functions. Make sure you list of processing) the job tickets for completion that
any assumption you make during analysis and eek As the week progresses, he adds to or changes
design. oo } oo the schedule by altering the order and adding new

Abacus Printing Company is a $20-million busi-  ickets to the stack of each person beginning a work

ness owned and operated by three longtime friends. hain Fach job goes through the same basic steps:
They are automating their order processing for the

first time. Abacus Printing is located in Atlanta, Step 1. Perform requested manufacturing (i.e.
Georgia and employs 20 people full-time. the engraving or printing work) accord-

The owners are the sales force. The company ing to the job ticket instructions.
1s set up so that each owner sells for a differ- Step 2. Verify quality of printed items and count
ent, wholly-owned subsidiary (A Sub, B Sub, and output, that is, actual printed sheets of
C Sub) to separate commissions and expenses for paper or envelopes. Write the actual
tax purposes. Below is a description of the work to count of items to be shipped on the job
be automated. ticket.

Three clerks do order entry and customer service. Step 3. Update the order/job ticket with actual
An order is given to one of the three clerks to be en- shipment information; print shipping
tered into the order entry part of the system. Orders papers and invoices which reflect actual
are batched by subsidiary for processing in the sys- shipments.
tem. There is at least one batch per clerk per day. Step 4. Bundle, wrap, and ship the order.

When a batch is complete, orders are printed. After

orders are printed, the system should maintain indi- The updating of the order with actual shipment
vidual orders for processing (i.e., the integrity of information may be done by either the shipping clerk
the batch is no longer needed). or by the same person who entered the order. The

790
second printing ‘closes’ the order from any other
changes and results in a multipart form being
printed. Two of the parts are copies of the invoices,
showing all prices and other charges with a total
amount due. One invoice copy is sent to the cus-
tomer; the other is filed for further processing by
accounts receivable. The third part of the set of
forms is the bill of lading, or shipping papers, that
shows all information except money amounts. The
fourth part of the form is filed numerically by
invoice number in a sequential history file. The fifth
part is filed in a customer file which is kept in
alphabetic sequence.

The system must allow order numbering by sub-
sidiary company, and must be able to print different
subsidiary name headers on the forms. The clerks
batch orders so that only orders from one subsidiary
are in each batch. Order types include recurring
orders, blanket orders (which cover the year with
shipments spaced out over the period), and orders
with multiple ship-to addresses that differ from the
sold-to addresses.

When customers call to change or determine the
status of an order, the clerk taking the call first
checks the customer file to see if the order is com-
plete. Then, he or she checks with the scheduler to
see if the order is in the current day's manufacturing
mix. If the order is not complete or scheduled, he or
she manually searches current orders to find the
paperwork. About 15% of customer calls are
answered while the customer is on the phone. About
80% require research and are answered with a call
back within 30 minutes. The remaining 5% require
tracking, which results in identifying an order taken
verbally by a partner and never written down. Cus-
tomers have been complaining of the lost orders and
threatening to go elsewhere with their business.

The current computer system is a smart type-
writer and storage facility. The owner wants to pro-
vide personal computer access via a local area
network for the three partners, three clerks, two
shipping staff, and one scheduler. He would like to
eliminate the numerical and alphabetical paper filing
systems but wants to maintain the information
on-line indefinitely for customer service queries.

The managers want ad hoc reporting access to the
information at all times. The senior clerk is also the

AOS Tracking System 791

accounting manager and, along with the owner,
should be allowed access to an override function to
correct errors in the system. The other clerks should
be allowed to perform data entry for order process-
ing and actual goods shipped, and to print invoices/
shipping papers. The shipping clerk should be al-
lowed to perform order updates with actual goods
shipped and to generate shipping papers with a final
invoice. The scheduler should be allowed access to
all outstanding orders to alter and schedule work for
the manufacturing processes. No one else in the
company should be allowed access to the system or
to the data.

AOS TRACKING
SYSTEM

The AOS case is a logical description of a desired
application that also includes manual problems to
be corrected.

The manager of Administrative Office Services
(AOS) wants to develop an automated application
to track work through its departments. The depart-
ments and services provided include: word process-
ing and proofing, graphic design, copying, and
mailing. Work can come into any of the departments,
and any number of services might be combined. For
instance, word processing and proofing can be the
only service. Word processing, proofing, and graphic
design might be combined. Another job might
include all of the services.

The current situation is difficult because each
manager has some knowledge of the work in his or
her own area, but not where work is once it leaves
their area. Overall coordination for completing jobs
using multiple services requires the AOS manager to
give each department a deadline. Then, the AOS
manager must track the jobs to ensure that they are
completed and moved along properly.

The basic work in each department is to receive
a job, check staff availability based on work load and
skills, assign staff, priority, and due date, and up-
date job information (for instance, if the work is
reassigned). Jobs are identified by a unique control
number that is assigned to each job. Other job
information maintained includes: requestor name,
792 APPENDIX Cases for Assignments

requestor phone, requestor budget code, manner of
receipt (either fax, paper, or phone dictation), man-
ner of delivery (either fax, paper, or phone dictation),
and dates and times work is received, due, com-
pleted, canceled, notified, and returned to requestor.

A job consists of requests for one or more types

of service. For each type of service, information
must also be kept. Services include word processing
and proofing, copying, graphic design, and mailing.

Information kept for word processing and proof-
ing services includes a description of the job, type
of request (letter, memo, statistics, legal document,
special project, chart, manual, labels, etc.), other ser-

vices included with this request (i.e., copying,
graphic design, mailing), software to be used (Word-
Perfect, Harvard Graphics, Lotus, Bar Coding,
Other), type of paper (logo, plain bond, user pro-
vided, envelope, other), color of paper (white, pink,
blue, green, buff, yellow, other), paper size (8.5" x
11", 8.5" x 14", other), special characteristics(2-
hole punch, 3-hole punch, other), type of enve-
lope (letter, legal, letter window, legal window, bill,
kraft 9" x 12", kraft 10" x 13", supplied by requestor,
other), number of copies requested, user control
number, dates/times required, started, completed,
reassigned, proof started, proof completed, revisions
started, and revisions completed.

Information kept for copying includes the above
except software and dates/times relating to proofing
and revisions. In addition, keep requirements for col-
lating, stapling, one-side or two-side, special formats
(e.g., reduced 60% and put side-by-side in book
format).

Information kept for graphic design and mailing
includes that for word processing, except type of
envelope. The code schemes for type of request,
paper, software, and special characteristics are dif-
ferent from those used for word processing. For
instance, paper for graphics refers to type of output
media which might actually include slide, trans-
parency, paper, envelope, video still, photograph,
moving video, and so on. The type of request must
be expanded to include the number of colors, spe-
cific color selections, intended usage (intracompany,
external, advertising, public relations, other) and
level of creativity (i.e., user provides graphic and
this department automates the design; user provides

concept and this department provides several alter-
native designs, etc.).

Information kept for mailing includes requested
completion date, and the dates and times requests
were received, completed, and acknowledged back
to requestor as complete. Other information includes
whether or not address labels were provided, mailing
list to be used (choice of four), number of pieces,
method of mailing (e.g., zip+four, carrier route code,
bar code, bulk, regular, special delivery, etc.), ma-
chinery required (e.g., mail inserter, mail sorter,
etc.), and source of mailing (e.g. word processing in
AOS, user, other).

As a department's staff gets an incoming job, it
should be logged into the system, assigned a log
number, and the job information should be entered
into the system. In addition, the receiving depart-
ment completes their service-specific information
(e.g., typing) and identifies the sequence of depart-
ments which will work on the job. As the individual
departments get their task information, they com-
plete the service-specific fields.

Each department manager assigns a person to the
task based on skills and availability. First, informa-
tion matching service requests to staff skills should
be done. Then, the staff with required skills should
be ordered by their earliest availability date for
assignment to the task. The system should allow
tracking (and retrieval) of a task by job, department/
task, person doing the work, date of receipt, due
date, or user.

The manager of AOS would like to receive a
monthly listing of all comments received (usually
they are complaints) and be able to query details of
the job history to determine the need for remedial ac-
tion. Comments should be linked to a job, service,
user, and staff member.

THE CENTER

FOR CHILD

DEVELOPMENT

This case describes a currently manual process. The
analysis and design task is to develop a new work

TABLE 1 Client Card File Information

Last Name
First Name
Middle Initial

Fiscal Year

Medicaid Number
Family Identifier
Line/Person Identifier
Sex
Year of Birth
Diagnosis Code (NA)
Issue Date

Dates of Visits

Fees per Week

Amount Paid

Balance Due (Updated Monthly)

flow and automated system for as much of the Medi-
caid payment process as possible.

The Center for Child Development (CCD) is a
not-for-profit agency that provides psychiatric coun-
seling to children, serving approximately 600 clients
per year. Each client has at least one visit to CCD per
week when they are in therapy. Most often, the client
has multiple visits to the center and to other agencies
in one day (e.g., to CCD and, say, to a hospital).
Medicaid reimburses expenses for only one such
visit per day. This means that multiple appointments
at CCD for a given day will have one appointment
reimbursed; multiple claims on the same Medicaid
number for the same day are paid on a first-in, first-
paid basis by Medicaid. The current claims process-
ing takes place monthly, for CCD to remain
competitive, Medicaid processing must be done
daily. To provide daily Medicaid processing, au-
tomation of the process is required. The Medicaid
Administration has arranged with personal computer
owners to take claims in automated form on disk-
ettes, provided that they conform to the information
and format requirements of paper forms.

To develop Medicaid claims, the business office
clerk reviews the client card file to obtain Medicaid
number and visit information for each client (see
Table 1 for Client Card File Information and Table
2 for Visit Card File Information recorded). Based

The Center for Child Development 793

on the card file information, Medicaid forms are
completed: one per client with up to four visits listed
on each form (see Table 3 for Medicaid information
required). Most clients have multiple forms pro-
duced because they have more than four visits to the
center per month. Each form must be completed in
its entirety (i.e., top and bottom) for Medicaid to
process them (the forms cannot be batched by client
with only variable visit information supplied).

One copy of each form is kept and filed in a
Medicaid-Pending Claims File. The other copies
of the forms (or disks) are mailed to Medicaid for
processing.

About four to six weeks after submission of
claims, Medicaid sends an initial determination
report on each claim. The response media is either
diskette or paper. Reconciliation of all paid amounts
is done by manually matching the Medicaid report
information with that from the original claim. If
automated, report entries are in subscriber (i.e., CCD
client) sequence. The paid claims are then filed in a
Medicaid-Paid Claims File.

Claims that are disputed by Medicaid (almost
90% are pending on the initial report; of pending
claims, 10-20% are ultimately denied) are re-
searched and followed up with more information as
required. Electronic reconciliation in other compa-
nies reduces the 90%-pending to as few as 10%, thus
speeding the reimbursement process. CCD has a
contact at Medicaid with whom they work closely
to resolve any problems.

TABLE 2 Visit Information

Day

Date

Type Appointment (i.e., Intake, Regular)
Client Name

Time of Appointment
Single/Group Visit
Amount Paid
Amount Owed
Insurance Company
Medicaid (YIN)

Last Date Seen
Therapist

794 APPENDIX Cases for Assignments

TABLE 3

Medicaid Claim Form Information

Permanently Assigned Fields

Information Completed by CCD

Company Name (CCD)

Invoice Number (Assigned by Medicaid, preprinted
on the forms)

Group ID Number (Not Applicable, i.e., NA)
Location Code (03)

Clinic (827)

Category (0160)

Number of Attachments (NA)
Office Number (NA)

Place of Service (NA)

Social Worker Type (NA)
Coding Method (6)
Emergency (N, i.e., No)
Handicapped (N)

Disability {N)

Family Planning (N)
Accident Code (0)

Patient Status (0)

Referral Code (0)
Abort/Sterile Code (0)

Prior Approval Number (NA)

Ignore Dental Insurance (Y)

Billing Date (must be within 90 days of service)
Recipient ID Number (Client Medicaid Number)
Year of Birth

Sex

Recipient (Client) Name

Social Worker License Number

Name of Social Worker

Primary/secondary diagnosis (Table look-up, 120 entries)
Date of Service

Procedure Code (This is a two-line entry to identify first
the treatment payment on the first line and the treatment
code on the second line.)

Procedure Description

Times Performed

Amount

Name of person completing the form

Date

(Information in parentheses is the permanent value of that field for CCD)

COURSE
REGISTRATION
SYSTEM

This case is a logical description of the desired
application. Your task is to analyze and design the
data and processes to develop an automated appli-
cation to perform course registration.

A student completes a registration request form
and mails or delivers it to the registrar's office. A
clerk enters the request into the system. First, the

Accounts Receivable subsystem is checked to ensure
that no fees are owed from the previous quarter.
Next, for each course, the student transcript is
checked to ensure that the course prerequisites are
completed. Then, class position availability is
checked; If all checks are successful, the student's
social security number is added to the class list.

The acknowledgment back to the student shows
the result of registration processing as follows: If
fees are owing, a bill is sent to the student; no regis-
tration is done and the acknowledgment contains the
amount due. If prerequisites for a course are not
filled, the acknowledgment lists prerequisites not
met and that course is not registered. If the class is
full, the student acknowledgment is marked with
‘course closed.' If a student is accepted into a class,
the day, time, and room are printed next to the course
number. Total tuition owed is computed and printed
on the acknowledgment. Student fee information is
interfaced to the Accounts Receivable subsystem.

Course enrollment reports are prepared for the
instructors.

DR. PATEL'S

DENTAL PRACTICE
SYSTEM

The dental practice uses a manual patient and billing
system to serve approximately 1,100 patients. The
primary components of the manual system are
scheduling patient appointments, maintaining
patient dental records, and recording financial infor-
mation. Due to increased competitive pressure,
Dr. Patel desires to automate his customer records
and billing.

New patients must complete the patient history
form. The data elements are listed in Table 1. Then,
at the first visit, the dentist evaluates the patient and
completes the second half of the patient history in-
formation with standard dental codes (there are
2,000 codes) to record recommended treatments.
The data elements completed by the dentist are listed
as Table 2. The patient history form is filed in a
manila folder, with the name of the patient as iden-
tification, along with any other documents from sub-
sequent visits.

A calendar of appointments is kept by the secre-
tary, who schedules follow-up visits before the
patient leaves the office. The calendar data elements
are shown as Table 3. Also, before the patient leaves,
any bills, insurance forms, and amounts due are
computed. The client may pay at that time, or may
opt for a monthly summary bill. The secretary main-
tains bill, insurance, and payment information with
the patient history. Financial data elements are
shown in Table 4. Every week, the secretary types
mailing labels that are attached to appointment

Dr. Patel's Dental Practice System 795

TABLE 1

Patient History Information

Patient name
Address
City
State
Zip
Home telephone
Date of birth
Sex
Parent's name (if under 21) or emergency contact
Address
City, state, zip

Telephone number
Known dental problems (room for 1-3)

Known physical problems (room for 1-3)
Known drug/medication allergies (room for 1-3)

Place of work name
Address
City
State
Zip
Telephone number
Insurance carrier
City, state, zip
Policy number

Last dentist name
Address
City, state, zip

Physician name
City, state, zip

TABLE 2 Dentist Prognosis Information

Dentist performing evluation

Date of evaluation

Time of evaluation

Recommended treatment (room for 1-10 diagnoses
and treatments)

Procedure code

Date performed (completed when performed)

Fee (completed when performed)

reminder cards and mailed. Once per month, the sec-
retary types and sends bills to clients with outstand-
ing balances.
796 APPENDIX Cases for Assignments

TABLE 3 Appointment Calendar

Patient name
Horne telephone number
Work telephone number
Date of last service
Date of appointment
Time of appointment
Type of treatment planned

TABLE 4 Patient Financial Information

Patient name
Address
City, state, zip
Horne telephone number
Work telephone number
Date of service
Fee
Payment received
Date of payment
Adjustment
Date of adjustment
Outstanding balance
Date bill sent
Date overdue notice sent

THE EAGLE
ROCK GOLF

LEAGUE

This is a logical description of a desired application.
The task is to analyze and design the data and pro-
cesses required to track golfers and rounds of golf,
including computation of match rankings.

The members of the Eagle Rock Golf League reg-
ularly compete in matches to determine their com-
parative ability. A match is played between two
golfers; each match either has a winner and a loser,
or is declared a tie. Each match consists of a round of
18 holes with a score kept for each hole. The person
with the lowest gross score (gross score = sum of
all hole scores) is declared the winner. If not a tie, the

outcome of a match is used to update the ranking
of players in the league: The winner is declared bet-
ter than the loser and any golfers previously beaten
by the loser. Other comparative rankings are left
unchanged.

The application should keep the following infor-
mation about each golfer: name, club ID, address,
home phone, work phone, handicap, date of last golf
round, date of last golf match, and current match
ranking.

Each round of golf should also be tracked includ-
ing golfer's club ID, name, scores for all 18 holes,
total for the round, match indicator (i.e., Yes/No),
match opponent ID (if indicator = Y), winner of the
match, and date of the match. The application should
allow golfers to input their own scores and allow any
legal user to query any information in the system.
Only the system should be allowed to change rank-
ings. Errors in data entry for winters or losers should
be corrected only by a club employee.

GEORGIA BANK

AUTOMATED TELLER ____ _
MACHINE SYSTEM

Georgia Bank describes an application to be devel-
oped. The functional requirements are described at
a high level of abstraction and the task is to do more
detailed analysis or to begin design.

The Georgia Bank is automating an automated

teller machine (ATM) network to maintain its com-

petitive position in the market. The bank currently
processes all deposit and withdrawal transactions
manually and has no capability to give up-to-the-
minute balance information. The bank has 200,000
demand-deposit account (DDA, e.g., checking ac-
count) customers artd 100,000 time deposit (e.g.,
savings account) customers. All customers have the
same account prefix with a two-digit account type
identifier as the suffix.

The ATM system should provide for up to three
transactions per customer. Transactions may be
processed via ATM machines to be installed in each
of the 50 branches and via the AVAIL™ network of
Georgia banks. The system should accept an ATM
identification card and read the ATM card number.
The ATM card number is used to retrieve account in-
formation including a personal ID number (PIN) and
balances for each DDA and time account. The sys-
tem should prompt for entry of the PIN and venfy its
correctness. Then the system should prompt for type
of transaction and verify its correctness.

For DDA transactions, the system prompts for
amount of money to be withdrawn. The amount
is verified as available, and if valid, the system
instructs the machine to dispense the proper amount
which is deducted from the account balance. If the
machine responds that the quantity of money
required is not available, the transaction is aborted.
A transaction acknowledgment (customer receipt)
is created. If the amount is not available or is over
the allowable limit of $250 per day per account, an
error message 1s sent back to the machine with
instructions to reenter the amount or to cancel the
transaction.

For time deposit transactions, the system prompts
for amount of money to be deposited and accepts an
envelope containing the transaction. The amount is
added to the account balance in transit. A transaction
acknowledgment is created.

For account balances, the system prompts for
type of account-ODA or time-and creates a report
of the amount. At the end of all transactions, or at the
end of the third transaction, the system prints the
transaction acknowledgment at the ATM and cre-
ates an entry in a transaction log for all transactions.
All other processing of account transactions will
remain the same as that used in the current DDA and
time deposit systems.

The customer file entries currently include cus-
tomer ID, name(s), address, social security number,
day phone, and for each account: account ID, date
opened, current balance, link to transaction file
(record of most recent transaction). The transaction
file contains: account ID, date, transaction type,
amount, source of transaction (i.e., ATM, teller ini-
tials) and link to next most recent transaction record.
The customer file must be modified to include the
ATM ID and password. The transaction log file con-
tains ATM ID, account ID, date, time, location,
transaction type, account type, and amount.

Summer's Inc. Sales Tracking System 797

SUMMER'S INC.

SALES TRACKING,
SYSTEM

This case describes a manual system for sales track-
ing. Your design should include work procedures
and responsibilities for all affected users.

Summer's Inc. is a family-owned, retail office-
product store in Ohio. Recently, the matriarch of the
family sold her interest to her youngest son who is
automating as much of their processing as possible.
Since accounting and inventory management were
automated two years ago, the next area of major
paper reduction is to automate retail sales to floor
processing.

The sales floor has four salespersons who to-
gether serve an average of 100 customers per day.
There are over 15,000 items for sale, each available
from as many as four vendors. The system should
keep track of all sales, decrease inventory for each
item sold, and provide an interface to the NR system
for credit sales.

A sale proceeds as follows. A customer selects
items from those on display and may request order-
ing of items that are not currently available. For
those items currently selected, a sales slip is created
containing at least the item name, manufacturer's
item number (this is not the same as the vendor's
number), retail unit price, number of units, type of
units (e.g. each, dozen, gross, ream, etc.), extended
price, sales tax (or sales exemption number), and
sale total. For credit customers, the customer name,
ID number, and purchaser signature are also
included. The sales total is entered into a cash regis-
ter for cash sales and the money is placed into the
register. A copy of the sales slip is given to the cus-
tomer as a receipt, and a copy is kept for Summer's
records. For orders or credit sales, the information
kept includes customer name, ID number, sale date,
salesman initials, and all details of each sales slip.
For credit sales, a copy of credit sale information
should be in an electronic interface to the accounting
system where invoices are created.

In the automated system, both cash and credit
sales must be accommodated, including the provi-
sion of paper copy receipts for the client and for
798 APPENDIX Cases for Assignments

Summer's. The inventory database should be up-
dated by subtracting quantity sold from units on
hand for that unit type, and the total sales amount for
the year-to-date sales of the item should be increased
by the amount of the sale. The contents of the
inventory database are shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1
Database

Summer's Inc. Inventory

General Item Information

Item Name (e.g. Flair Marker, Fine-Point Blue; Flair
Marker, Wide-Point Blue, etc.)
Item Manufacturer
Date began carrying item
Units information*
Unit tvpe (e.g, each, dozen, gross, etc.)
Retail unit cost
Units on order
Units on hand
Total units sold in 1993

Vendor-Item Information*
Vendor ID
Vendor item ID
Vendor-units information*
Unit tvpe (e.g., each, dozen, gross, etc.)
Last order date
Discount schedule
Wholesale unit cost

Vendor General Information

Vendor ID

Vendor name

Vendor address

Terms

Ship method

Delivery lead time
Item-Information
Vendoritem ID
Unit tvpe (e.g., each, dozen, gross, etc.)
Last order date
Discount schedule
Wholesale unit cost

(Note: Primary keys are underlined; repeating groups are identi-
fied with a boldface name and an asterisk.)

TECHNICAL

CONTRACTING,
INC.

Technical Contracting, Inc. (TCI) describes a man-
ual process to be automated. The data and processes
are approximately equally complex; both require
some analysis and design before the automated
application can be designed. First, decide what
information in the problem description is relevant
to an automated application for client-contractor
matching, then proceed with the assignment.

TCI is a rapidly expanding business that contracts
IS personnel to organizations that require specific
technical skills in Dallas, TX. Since this business is
becoming more competitive, Dave Lopez, the
owner, wants to automate the processing of person-
nel placement and resume maintenance.

The files of applicant resumes and skills are
coded according to a predefined set of skills. About
10 new applicant resumes arrive each week. A clerk
checks the suitability of the resume for the services
TCI provides and returns unsuitable resumes with a

letter to the applicant. The applicant is invited to
reapply when they have acquired skills that are in
high demand, several of which are listed in the letter.
High-demand jobs are determined by counting the
type of requests that have been received in the last
month. Resumes of applicants are added to the file
with skills coded from a table. There are currently
200 resumes on file that are updated every six
months with address, phone, skills, and project
experience for the latest period. Most of the resume
information is coded. There is one section per proj-
ect for a text description. This section is free-form
text and allows up to 2,500 characters of description.
Client companies send their requests for special-
ized personnel to TCI either by mail, phone, or per-
sonal delivery. For new clients, one of TCI's clerks
records client details such as name, ID, address,
phone, and billing information. For each require-
ment, the details of the job are recorded, including
skill requirements (e.g., operating system, language,
analysis skills, design skills, knowledge of file struc-
tures, knowledge of DBMS, teieprocessing knowl-
edge, etc.), duration of the task, supervisor name,
supervisor level, decision authority name, level of
difficulty, level of supervision required, and hourly
rate. For established clients, changes are made as
required.

Once a day, applicant skills are matched to client
requirements. Then Dave reviews the resumes and,
based on his knowledge of the personalities in-
volved, selects applicants for interviewing by the
client company. When Dave selects an applicant, the
resume is printed and sent with a cover letter. Dave
follows up the letter with a phone call three days
later. If the client decides to interview the appli-
cant(s), Dave first prepares them with a sample
interview, then they are interviewed by the client.

Upon acceptance of an applicant, two sets of con-
tracts are drawn up. A contract between TCI and the
client company is developed to describe the terms
of the engagement. These contracts can be compli-
cated because they might include descriptions of dis-
counts in billings that apply when multiple people
are placed on the contract, or might include
longevity discounts when contractors are engaged
over a negotiated period of time. A contract between
TCI and the applicant is developed to describe the
terms of participation in the engagement. Basically,
the applicant becomes an employee of Dave's orga-
nization for the duration of the contract.

TCI keeps information on demand for each type
of skill, whether they provide people with the skill or
not. Dave also monitors TCI performance in filling
requests for each skill and evaluating lost contracts
due to nonavailability of applicants (to raise his fees
for those services, and to advertise for those skills).
TCI advertises for applicants with specific skills
when client demand for new skills reaches three re-
quests in any one month, or when demand for skills
already on file increases to such an extent that the
company is losing more than three jobs per month.

XV University Medical Tracking System 799

XY UNIVERSITY

MEDICAL

TRACKING

SYSTEM

The XY University case is a brief logical description
of a simple tracking system with a complex data
structure. The key to a good design is to analyze and
define the data and services properly.

XY University student medical center serves a
student population of 60,000 students and faculty in
a large metropolitan area. Over 300 patients receive
one or more medical services each day. The univer-
sity has a new president who wishes to overhaul the
existing medical support structure and modernize the
facilities to improve the services. In order to plan
for these changes, more information on which ser-
vices are in fact used is required. The university
wishes to develop a patient tracking system that
traces each patient throughout their stay in school for
each visit to the facility.

Students and faculty are identified by their identi-
fication numbers. They should be logged into the
system (i.e, date, time, and ID) when they enter the
facility. They may or may not have appointments.
Then, some means of recording and entering infor-
mation into the computer system must be provided
for each of the following: station visited, medical
contact person, type of contact (i.e., consultation,
treatment, follow-up check, routine checkup, emer-
gency, etc.), length of contact, diagnosis, treatment,
medicine prescribed (i.e., name, brand, amount,
dosage), and follow-up advised (yes/no). All infor-
mation must be available for query processing and
all queries must be displayed either at terminals or
on printers.