Thunder Dental is a privately owned Naturopathic Clinic in Thunder Bay, ON that specializes in hygeine. As part of a five-year plan, Thunder has recently completed its expansion into four major areas of the City. It now offers treatment at locations in Fort William, Port Arthur, Intercity and Westfort. In order to maintain consistency in its services across all four of its locations and offer high-quality treatment, Dr. Horarth has decided to offer training and ongoing education for its team of 17 staff and practitioners. Management is trying to decide between two methods of Knowledge-Based training and has asked for your help. See Page 2 for the chart that outlines the costs between the methods proposed! If the clinic decides to offer the classroom training, the staff and practitioners will be paid to attend the training and will be exempt from performing regular duties. The company estimates that revenue for four days of normal business practices is approximately $33,000 among the four locations. At each location, Thunder Clinic employs two full-time administrative staff who make $200 a day and two part-time administrative staff that make approximately $80 a day and work 20 hours per week (exactly half the hours of the full-time staff). The remainder of the employees are practitioners. The practitioners' average salary is $400 per day. The Millers will be providing lunch if they decide to implement the classroom training which they budgeted $1000.88 per day.

a) Report to Dr. Hogarth explaining which training method you recommend he implement for his employees.

b) cost summary and incremental analysis to aid in the decision making. Be sure to include any qualitative factors that should be considered in this decision.

Self-Directed Computer-Based

Distance Training Classroom Training

Development time

Initial : Five months Initial:one month

Yearly updates : one week Yearly updates: one week

Internal developers

Three subject experts Three subject matter experts (Dr. Hogarth, (D (Dr. Hogarth, his wife and assistant) his wife and assistant)

External developers Web-based training developer at $200,000 None

Training population One time per participants Maximum 50 participants per Session

Frequency One time per participants Presented quarterly; participants attend

as needed.

Length Administrative staff: one day in total; at leisure Administrative staff: one day

Practitioner: four days in total; at leisure Practitioners :four days

Location In office or at other location Rental space at $2,500 per day all

expenses included.