Wayne Haga

A Simulation Approach to the PERT/CPM Time-Cost Trade-Off Problem

The traditional method of crashing Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) networks ignores the stochastic nature of activity completion times, reducing the stochastic model to a deterministic Critical Path Method (CPM) model and simply using activity time means in calculations. The project is then arbitrarily crashed to some desired completion date, without consideration for what the penalty for late completion of the project is. Additionally, the method ignores the fact that reducing some activity times may reduce the mean project completion time more than others, due to such factors as bottlenecks. The authors use a computer simulation model to determine the order in which activities should be crashed as well as the optimal crashing strategy for a PERT network to minimize the expected value of the total (crash + overrun) cost, given a specified penalty function for late completion of the project. Three extreme network types are examined, each with two different penalty functions.

Weaving a Web Development Curriculum

Faculty in the Computer Information Systems department at the authors’ institution is in the process of developing a new Computer Information Systems degree with several areas of emphasis. One of the proposed areas of emphasis will be to prepare students for a career as a web developer. As part of the curriculum development process, the authors collected data regarding the current demand for web developers, the education level requested, salaries, and the specific skills employers are demanding. The research process included reading and recording the education level, experience, and specific skills employers are requesting for hundreds of jobs that have been posted on the Internet within the last few months. Additionally, data was gathered from other sources including courses and programs offered at other institutions of higher education. Using this data, a model curriculum for a degree leading to a career in the field of web development is proposed.

Do Students Get Enough Information Systems Education in the Business Core

Information Systems/Technology is a key component in today’s business infrastructures with a myriad of ever-increasing and innovative applications fuelling the drive for competitive advantage. Therefore information systems education should be a critical element in business schools programs today to appropriately prepare students to be competitive. As our university was seeking AACSB accreditation we wanted to investigate what other programs were doing for the information systems area in the business core. Therefore data was acquired from 61 peer institutions, 89% of which are AACSB-accredited. Data about the components of the business core were collected from the university websites and analysed to determine the amount of the business core curriculum devoted to information systems. Analysis indicates that 85% of the peer institutions had one information systems course and only three percent had two information systems courses.

Employee characteristics for IT workers in a transition job market

The bursting of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s resulted in a tightening of the belt in most sectors but especially in Information Technology. Two key issues faced by employees and would-be employees were: (1) how to get a job in this tight market? and (2) just as significant, how to keep a job in this market? This paper seeks to determine what set of characteristics is important in hiring new employees, what set of characteristics is important in retaining current employees and how the two sets of characteristics compare.