The lottery commission of a state with about $500 million a year in revenue has looked to modem technology for increasing lottery sales. The strategy is to place self- service sales machines around the state. Customers simply fill out the bubbles on the form and insert the form into the computer. If they wish, they may enter their numbers directly in the computer and skip the form altogether. The machine accepts cash and automatic teller machine cards. The lottery commission is very excited about this project because it thinks it could boost lottery ticket sales by as much as 30 percent.

The systems department has finished the final feasibility report and has determined the following estimates for implementing the system. It plans on purchasing a larger, more powerful mainframe computer to handle the processing of the transactions. The manufacturer has promised a delivery date of 3 months from the time the order is placed. The lottery sales machines must be special ordered and require a lead time of 5 months. The plan is to initially order 15 machines and test them for 12 weeks. If all goes well, the lottery commission will order a total of 500 machines, with 20 delivered and installed each month. This order will not be placed until the results of the pilot test have been analyzed.

The writing of the programs is expected to take 6 weeks. The testing of the programs on the mainframe is expected to take 4 weeks, with an additional 3 weeks once the sales machines have been received. The state gaming commission is expected to test for another 2 weeks. The design of the databases is expected to take only 2 weeks. Not much data transfer is expected to be necessary, so only 3 weeks is budgeted for this task.

An estimated 20 employees need to be hired and trained to install and maintain these machines around the state. The hiring process is expected to take 6 weeks, and the training should take an additional 6 weeks. The documentation should take about 3 months and should be completed before the training of the new employees. As soon as the gaming commission signs off on the programs, the 15 machines are to be installed at test sites around the state. Four weeks are allotted for this installation procedure. A 1-week testing period is planned, with commission employees going to the sites and using the machines. An additional week is planned to review the results of these tests. The pilot test then begins and runs for 8 weeks. The data will be analyzed for 4 weeks after the pilot test. The final order for the additional machines will be placed after the data analysis is conducted and the demand for the number of machines is more accurately determined.

Required

a. Prepare a PERT chart for the process described. Identify the critical path.

b. Prepare a Gantt chart for the process described.