Willowbrook School

Willowbrook School is a small private school that has retained you to assist in the

development of a new information system for the schools administrative needs.

Background

Based on your earlier recommendations,

Willowbrook

decided to

continue the systems

development process for a new information system that would improve operati

ons,

decrease costs, and reduce some of the administrative workload

.

Now, at the end of the systems analysis phase, you are ready to prepare a system

requireme

nts document and give a presentation to the

Willowbrook School staff

. Many of

the proposed systems advantages were described during the fact

-

finding process. Those

include smoother operation, better efficiency, and more user

-

friendly procedures for

staff

and parents

.

You must examine tangible costs and benefits to determine the economic

feasibility of several alternatives.

The finance and fund

-

raising committees will need to

examine the costs and benefits to determine if the development process will go ah

ead.

If

Willowbrook School

decides to go ahead with the development process,

the system either

can

be developed in

-

house or a vertical package can be purchased and configured to meet

the needs of the school.

Currently, Susan Brown is logging

30

hours of o

vertime a month to accomplish

the increased workload associated with increased enrollment and school expansion

.

She

is being compensated for overtime at the rate of $12 per hour.

B

ased on current

enrollment

projections,

the overtime will need to be expande

d to

70

hours a month (an

additional 40 hours a month over the previously mentioned 30 hours of overtime)

for the

billing requirements for the next school year as the final grade in the 4

6 classroom

comes online

.

The overtime requirement would be eliminat

ed if Willowbrook

implements the new system

. The current system

now

causes an average of

20

errors per

month

, and each error takes about

30

minutes to correct. The new system should

eliminate those errors.

Based on your research, you

originally

estimate

d

by working full

-

time you could

complete

an in

-

house development

project in about

8 weeks.

Your consulting rate, which

Willowbrook

agreed to, is $

50

per hour. If you design the new system as a database

application, you can expect to spend about $

2,000

for a

networked commercial package.

One of the parents at Willowbrook has extensive experience with this package as a

Database Administrator

at a local company, and has committed to providing 15 hours per

week working with you to develop the project. You have a

greed

to reduce your estimate

to 25 hours per week for 8 weeks to take advantage of this offer.

After the system is

operational and the staff is trained, you hope that

Willowbrook staff and volunteers

can

handle routine maintenance tasks without your assis

tance

at the rate of $12 per hour

.

As an alternative to in

-

house development, a vertical software p

ackage is

available for about $

7,500

. The vendor offers a lease

-

purchase package o

f $2,5

00 down,

followed by

two

annual installments of $2,5

00 each. If

Will

owbrook

buys the package, it

would take you about

three

weeks to install, configure, and test it, working full

-

time. The

vendor provides free support during the first year of operation, but then

Willowbrook

must sign a technical support agreement at an ann

ual cost of $

5

00

for the duration of

years

. Although the package contains many of the features that

Willowbrook

wants, most

of the reports are pre

-

designed and it would be difficult to modify their layouts.

You have agreed to provide

five

hours per week o

f training and support for the

first two months of operation.

After the new system is operational, it will need routine

maintenance, file backups, and updating. These tasks will require about four hours per

week and

will be performed by school staff or par

ent volunteers

.

For both the in

-

house development and the vertical software package, the

necessary hardware will cost about $3

,000.

Hardware and network installation will be

provided by three parent volunteers.

In your view, the useful life of the system

will be about

five

years, including the

year in which the system becomes operational.

The development of the new system will occur in Year 0, but the system will not

be used until Year 1. The school will use the manual system during development, and

will

switch over to the new system during the month of June, to start the new school year

on the new system.

Use $12.00 per hour for any rate not previously stated in the case

Assignment - Read the case study overview document provided in this week's assignment folder. Prepare a report that addresses the following:

You scheduled a presentation to Willowbrook School in one week, and you must submit a system requirements document during the presentation. Prepare both the written documentation and the presentation. (Note: To give a successful presentation, you will need to learn the skills described in Part 1 of the Systems Analysts Toolkit.) Your oral and written presentation must include the following tasks:

a. Provide an overview of the proposed system, including costs and benefits, with an explanation of the various cost-and-benefit types and categories.

b. Develop an economic feasibility analysis, using payback analysis, ROI, and present value (assume a discount rate of 8 percent).

c. Provide a brief explanation of the various alternatives that should be investigated if development continues, including in-house development and any other possible strategies.