NEW SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

Solution: Solution: Many major systems were designed in close consultation with the agency staff and built to their specifications. System user interfaces were designed to vary according to the needs and skills of a diversity of users, from professionals making occasional inquiries to full-time data-entry operators. The project was completed on-budget and on-time, and the systems were the mainstay of the agency's operations for almost 10 years.

Problem: Project: A professional services firm needed a system to manage project budgets for numerous projects led by in-house directors and outside contractors. The system had to work with an existing accounting package which provided no data-export capabilities, and add a unique probabilistic "expected value" accrual system, recognizing changes in reserves for prior quarters and prior years as project "chance of closing" estimates changed.

Solution: Solution: To minimize both the costs and risks of duplication, a method was devised to extract both data and budget category specifications from the existing accounting package automatically. Then stand-alone analysis programs were designed and developed to provide the necessary budget/actual breakdowns to allow management to identify problems and patterns. The system has been the backbone of project-based financial management for 8 years, and numerous ancillary projects have been pursued.

DATA RESCUE

Problem: A major public authority's accounting system was suffering from program errors. Crashes were frequent, leading to progressive data corruption. The system consisted of over a thousand programs, and there was no access to the designers or to previous programmers. Daily operations were critical and no significant downtime could be scheduled.

Solution: An automatic approach was taken. First a task force of diagnostic and data-repair programs were written to stabilize the situation. These were run daily to head off impending crashes and prevent further data loss. Then an "archaeological" group of programs was built to analyze the system as a whole, and track down the design contradictions and coding errors that were the ultimate cause of the problems. With these results obtained, a strategy of automatic and "hand crafted" changes rationalized the system without downtime.

SYSTEM CONVERSION

Solution: A finite-state automaton was written to analyze the lexical structure of the programs and rewrite the incompatible portions. These programs are now a mainstay of the firm's cash flow.

Problem: A marketing firm had purchased a new computer system and needed to convert their old, informally kept computer data to the new, rigorously defined format. A previous conversion had failed; the converted data never became "clean" enough.

Solution: By working closely with the personnel who had operated the previous system, programs were developed which could look at the records as a whole and had enough "judgement" to be able to standardize 90% of the questionable data. The remaining 10% was parsed into two groups. The preponderance of these cases were presented to an operator during the conversion run for immediate approval or correction, and the small group of remaining cases required detailed human investigation. The conversion was successful and went into immediate operation.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Solution: Data collection was accomplished by coordinating a team that varied from five to twenty staff members. When the sample size permitted, programs were written to perform statistical analyses and data graphing. Working with administrators and policy makers, an algorithm was formulated which would fairly implement the politically mandated philosophy, and be practical to manage. In a public hearing, public testimony in defense of the algorithm was offered, and questions were fielded. Simultaneously, data collection and automatic checking/conversion continued, and the calculation and mailing systems were developed and tested. Sophisticated and painstaking methods ensured that the systems would run correctly and handle all special cases on their first and only "live" data run. There was zero tolerance for error. The adjustment was completed on time, with no program errors and minimal data corrections. Follow-on contracts to perform the adjustment in succeeding years were written and executed.

MANAGEMENT CONSULTING

Solution: After close consultation with the Chairman, Director for Administration, various Surgical Heads and support staff, and a survey of existing systems, a model of the department's information-handling needs was formulated, and used to project systems requirements. A detailed set of reports outlined staffing, hardware and software requirements, and presented a staged plan for systems development. These reports were used as the vehicle for a series of meetings building the institutional buy-in to make the plan a reality. The plan was a success, and a follow-on contract to formulate a plan for Anesthesiology followed.

SYSTEMS RATIONALIZATION

Solution: After interviews with the firm's managing partner, the lawyers, office manager and secretarial staff, and an analysis of the system code, a multi-phase system rationalization program was devised. A coordinated series of program fixes, new systems, training sessions and user manuals proceeded in three phases: first, to put out the fires and get documents flowing again; second, to bring into operation the system features that would save the most time and money; and third, to standardize and enhance the systems and procedures to make them more manageable and resistant to error.

SCIENTIFIC

Solution: To achieve the accuracy and graphical "glossiness" required, the programs had to concern themselves on a millisecond by millisecond basis with the exact state of the hardware platform in quite unusual ways, including redundant timing mechanisms, dynamic adaptation to the exact position of the scanning electron beam of the screen, etc. The required software was designed and developed, and the study is progressing successfully.