ITECH1100 Understanding the Digital Revolution

Overview

For this individual assignment, you will use skills acquired through practical laboratory exercises to automate a business process, and to visualize the impact of the automation.

You should use Microsoft Excel (or equivalent open-source software) for this assessment task.

Timelines and Expectations

Percentage value of task: 25%

Due: Refer to Course Description

Learning Outcomes Assessed

The following course learning outcomes are assessed by completing this assessment:

A1. Prepare a basic solution to a business problem;

A2. Select appropriate IT solutions for business functions;

A3. Apply business information software for data visualization and analysis purposes.

S1. Write basic programming logic;

S3. Interpret and construct representations of business data flow and processes;

K8. Outline the basic principles of programming.

Assessment Details

For this assignment, you will complete the following set of tasks using Excel, and create a report to describe your work.

Ensure you submit Excel files created for ALL tasks, along with your report. You may use an ePortfolio, a Word document or a PDF for your report submission.

Scenario details

The following scenario is fictional, and not based on any real business. It is also highly simplified, and should not be used as a basis for a real business management system.

Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital is a small veterinary clinic, working with domestic companion animals. Mostly they work with dogs, cats, and smaller animals such as hamsters and rabbits.

Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital is run by a team of two veterinarians, Andrew and Benjamin, and one administrative staff member, Carrie.

Team hours

Most of the time, team members work the following shifts at Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital: Andrew works 6.5 hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays;

Benjamin works 6.5 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays; and Carrie works 3.5 hours every weekday.

Costs

Andrew, as the most experienced veterinarian, costs $45 per hour to employ. Benjamin, as a veterinarian, costs $38 per hour to employ.

Carrie costs $30 per hour to employ.

These rates take into account other costs related to employment, you don't need to add any additional offsets.

All staff are also entitled to four weeks of paid annual leave, during which casual replacements are required at a cost of $49 per hour for the veterinarians and $39 per hour for Carrie.

During their leave weeks, Andrew, Benjamin, and Carrie continue to be paid.

Fixed costs such as permits, rent, and insurance are $16384 per year, and monthly utility costs (such as electricity and gas) are $390 per month.

Task 1 - Wages and Fixed Costs

Using Excel, create a spreadsheet called operating_costs.xlsx that calculates the projected annual outgoing costs of running Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital. Only include the above expenses.

Your spreadsheet should be configured such that the working hours, hourly rates, and annual and monthly costs can be varied easily.

After building the spreadsheet, use it to answer the following questions in your report:

What is the projection of total costs for the next year, including labour, annual, and monthly costs? How much income does Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital need per month to cover the above costs?

What is the projection of labour costs only for the next year, if both veterinarians were to cost $45 per hour,

but the clinic closed on Fridays?

Document your findings in your report (approximately 100 words).

History data

When customers attend Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital, they have a consultation with whichever veterinarian is available that day.

In order to improve their business processes, Carrie has been keeping records of each consultation for several months in a spreadsheet.

This data includes a date, the consultation type, the animal type, the expenses incurred (such as tests, protective equipment, and so on) and the price charged.

This spreadsheet is available for you to download on Moodle.

Task 2 - Analysis

Using Excel, process the history spreadsheet and use any approach to answer the following:

Which animal type has the fewest emergency visits overall?

After about two months, the clinic started running a discount day for dog checkups, to try to reduce emergency visits. Which day did they run them on, and were they successful at reducing emergencies?

Support your claims using appropriate analysis or data visualization (approximately 150-200 words).

Task 3 - History visualization

Using Excel, process the history spreadsheet and use any appropriate charts to visualize the following: How consultations differ between animal types;

How prices or expences have changed over time;

How consultations have differed between veterinarians.

You will need to find a way to use Excel to associate each consultation with a staff member. Describe your approach and your findings in your report (approximately 200-300 words).

Include your visualizations as images. Be sure to use appropriate titles and labels.

Task 4 - Price consistency

The team are unhappy with some of the differences detected above, and would like to make them more consistent.

For vaccinations and check-ups, the team would like to standardize the prices for each is the same for all small animals (birds, rabbits, and hamsters) and the same for all larger animals (dogs and cats).

Using Excel, analyse the historical data you have available, and create a spreadsheet that allows Carrie to enter the animal type and consultation type, and gives a quote amount.

Ensure that your spreadsheet is usable - it should be simple and include appropriate text and formatting to make your spreadsheet easy to use by a member of the Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital team (or by a University lecturer).

It is up to you to determine an appropriate quoting method, however it's vital that the new system doesn't lose money compared to the previous approach.

Describe and justify your approach in your report (approximately 150 words). Include how you tested your solution, and how you made sure the clinic is not worse off under your new approach.

Task 5 - Process improvement

Research the consulation process used in a typical veterinary clinic. Make sure you reference any sources, or indicate if you are basing your work on personal knowledge.

Using BPMN swimlane diagrams, show how the spreadsheet you created in Task 4 can be applied to

improve the processes at Furry Friends Veterinary Hospital. Justify your approach in your report (approximately 150 words).

Bonus challenge task (optional!)

Disclaimer: This task is 100% optional, and you can receive full marks without attempting or completing it. It is intended to be a challenge if you are interested in such things, and the marks available do not reflect the significant research and effort required to implement it correctly. Tutors will not prioritize assistance for this challenge task.

Optional task 5

Reimplement Tasks 1 and 4 using either Python or HTML+JavaScript.

Write a brief overview of how to run your solution, and attach a zip file containing your code submission.

There are no partial marks awarded for this bonus task - you must complete all features to attain the bonus marks.

It is possible to attain full marks for this assignment without completing this challenge task.

Further details

Assignment support

This assignment is supported by the first 8 lectures and labs. Work on the assignment should be spread over several weeks after the relevant lab has been mastered.

Submission

All files should be submitted to Moodle by the due date and time. Check with your tutor as to whether a hard copy is required in addition to the electronic submission.

Marking Criteria/Rubric

Refer to the attached marking guide.

Feedback

Feedback will be supplied through Moodle. Authoritative marks will be published through fdlMarks