1. Assignment: Select a company for which you have a working
knowledge including goals, mission, strategy, and culture. In
addition to a working knowledge of the company, you must
have access to people in both the IT functions and in the
business who will be willing to allow you to interview them to
Tell a story of how the information technology function
supports the business. Remember from your case study analysis
work that not all organizations employ information technology
well. Many treat the function and the cost as an expense. Some
treat it as an investment. Analyze the facts your discover to
explain what information technology means for your chosen
organization.
Your analysis should be a concise view of what is the condition
of IT at your organization. Make sure that the sections relate to
each other as an integrated report. Note in each topic area, the
direction the organization should be heading. See Brown, et al
text glossary and text for abbreviations and mnemonics. Vendor
and product names and versions are not necessary but very
helpful.
Required:
1. Company description
Industry and company goals and objectives
Company culture
Market position and how this impacts the investment in IT
2. Work System Snapshots to illustrate your analysis.
Use the concepts introduced in this course to discuss the
technology components. Include business processes, products

2. and services, and customers.
3. Profile of individuals you interview
Explain the function(s), role(s), and decision making authority
of people you interview.
4. Analysis of IT
The following lists are included to help you plan what you will
investigate and address. Your organization may not have some
of these technologies or may be discussing using them. The list
is not intended to be exhaustive or prescriptive. You may have
other Information Technology that is not mentioned here that is
important to your industry or firm. Include a discussion on any
Information Technology (IT) discovered that is important to
your firm.
IT Department and staff
CIO title and reports to whom
IT department title, number and allocation of staff (refer to an
Org chart)
Percent of the IT budget of the total budget
Analysts resident and reporting to user departments?
Are users project leaders at your organization?
Outsource any functions e.g. help desk?
Number of new hires last year and number of these who were
entry level
Average time IT staff stay or a turnover statistic
Number of IT layoffs in last budget year and at what level
Is there a Web team? What is the Web team called, and where
does it report?
Systems development life cycle
Methodologies used to develop systems
Percentage of purchased packages vs. in-house development
Project team assignment-e.g. are users project leaders

3. Learn what you can about an ongoing or recently completed
development effort, budget, schedule, who was on the team,
project management software used, etc.
Capability Maturity Model rating
Offshore software development projects, vendors, onsite
activity
Hierarchy of information systems
AI applications
DSS applications
MIS reports
TPS
Mobile
Support of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
Hardware
Numbers and types of platforms-mainframe, minicomputer,
workstations, PCs
Critical input/output devices particular to your firm and
industry-e.g. hand held scanners for UPS
Cloud services
Software
Type of OS for each platform, critical applications (e.g. billing
system for utilities)
Programming languages used for legacy and new development
Collaborative software
Office automation software and policies
Database management systems (DBMS)
Name of DBMS used across platforms
Critical application databases (e.g. customer information for
Land's End)
Database administrator on staff
Telecommunications
Number of LANs WANs, connecting where
Internet service providers
Intranet
Extranet
Use of wireless

4. EDI with suppliers
e-Commerce activity with customers and suppliers and security
employed to do so
Videoconferencing
Global transmission and issues with foreign countries and
cultures
Management perspective (SWOT Analysis)
Strengths and weaknesses
Threats and opportunities
Issues and implication for the organization
5. Conclusions
By synthesizing and interpreting all the information you gather,
draw conclusions about the organization and explain the role of
information technology related to the success of the
business/organization.
6. References
Make sure you cite all sources. This project is not intended to
be a personal recollection. Rather, consult documentation,
interview people, and search for news sources. Do not, however,
violate the proprietary rules of your organization.
If you do not have an organization for which you can perform
this analysis, then contact your facilitator for an alternate
assignment.
Assignment: Select a company for which you have a working
knowledge including goals, mission,
strategy, and culture. In addition to a working knowledge of the
company, you must have access to
people in both the IT functions and in the business who will be
willing to allow you to interview them to

5. Tell a story of how the information technology function
supports the business. Remember from your
case study analysis work that not all organizations employ
information technology well. Many treat the
function and the cost as an expense. Some treat it as a
n investment. Analyze the facts your discover to
explain what information technology means for your chosen
organization.
Your analysis should be a concise view of what is the condition
of IT at your organization. Make sure that
the sections relate to each
other as an integrated report. Note in each topic area, the
direction the
organization should be heading. See Brown, et al text glossary
and text for abbreviations and
mnemonics. Vendor and product names and versions are not
necessary but very helpful.
R
equired:
1. Company description
Industry and company goals and objectives
Company culture
Market position and how this impacts the investment in IT

6. 2. Work System Snapshots to illustrate your analysis.
Use the concepts introduced in this course to di
scuss the technology components. Include business
processes, products and services, and customers.
3. Profile of individuals you interview
Assignment: Select a company for which you have a working
knowledge including goals, mission,
strategy, and culture. In addition to a working knowledge of the
company, you must have access to
people in both the IT functions and in the business who will be
willing to allow you to interview them to
Tell a story of how the information technology function
supports the business. Remember from your
case study analysis work that not all organizations employ
information technology well. Many treat the
function and the cost as an expense. Some treat it as an
investment. Analyze the facts your discover to
explain what information technology means for your chosen
organization.
Your analysis should be a concise view of what is the condition
of IT at your organization. Make sure that
the sections relate to each other as an integrated report. Note in
each topic area, the direction the
organization should be heading. See Brown, et al text glossary
and text for abbreviations and
mnemonics. Vendor and product names and versions are not
necessary but very helpful.

7. Required:
1. Company description
Industry and company goals and objectives
Company culture
Market position and how this impacts the investment in IT
2. Work System Snapshots to illustrate your analysis.
Use the concepts introduced in this course to discuss the
technology components. Include business
processes, products and services, and customers.
3. Profile of individuals you interview
ME209 Summer 2015 R. B. Tarn
Homework #3
Create a flowchart for each of these two homework problems;
hand drawn is sufficient, or you
can use whichever drawing program you like. Use one
workbook (save as file type *.xlsm) with
a User Interface Worksheet (UIW) and VBA module for each of
these two homework problems.
Submit the flowcharts and workbook electronically via Moodle,
and submit hardcopies of all
work (flowcharts, worksheets and VBA code modules) at the

8. beginning of class on Wednesday,
July 8, or at the ME Department office by 3:30 PM on
Wednesday, July 8. Be sure your name is
at the top of all pages.
General programming expectations: Include logic in your code
to protect it from errors caused
by inappropriate or invalid user inputs, or other process cases
that may cause runtime errors. For
example, if division by zero can occur, test for that condition
and write code to handle it
gracefully. Message boxes are an appropriate means of alerting
your user to inappropriate or
invalid inputs to Sub procedures. Never use Input boxes in
homework or project assignments.
Hint for determining if a worksheet cell is blank (empty): If
Cells(irow, icol) = "",
then the cell is blank.
Problem 1: Polar & Cartesian Coordinates Converter
Polar coordinates are related to Cartesian Coordinates by the
following equations.
2 2 1
cos( ) sin( ) tan ( )
y

9. x r y r r x y
x
Write a well-structured Sub procedure that reads inputs for x, y,
r, and θ from worksheet cells
B3, B4, B5, and B6, respectively. Input units of x, y, and r will
be millimeters, and input units
of θ will be in degrees. Name these input cells and create
appropriate labels for them.
Process the inputs according to this logic:
1. If the x and y inputs are both zero (or blank) AND the r and θ
inputs are NOT both zero, then
calculate x and y outputs corresponding with the given r and θ,
and write their values to cells B3
and B4, respectively.
2. If the r and θ inputs are both zero (or blank) AND the x and y
inputs are NOT both zero, then
calculate the r and θ outputs corresponding with the given x and
y, and write their values to cells
B5 and B6, respectively.
3. For all other conditions, do nothing.

10. Add a Run Button to the worksheet and assign it to your Sub
procedure. Test your Sub
procedure with inputs x = 2.5mm and y = 7.1mm to compute r
and θ. Then test your Sub with
inputs r = 5.5mm and θ = 49° to compute x and y. Ensure that
your code calculates θ correctly,
even for the case when x=0.
Problem 2: Statistics
Write a well-structured Sub procedure to compute the average
and standard deviation of data
entered by the user in column A of the user interface worksheet,
beginning in row 1. Your user
may enter as many data values as he/she wants, so your code
must determine how many data
values are entered. The end of the data values list will be
determined by the first blank cell in
column A.
Design your Sub to read the values into an array, and then
compute the average and standard
deviation of the data, using the values stored in the array. The
formulas for the average and

11. standard deviation are:
Average Standard Deviation
1
n
i
i
y
y
n
2
2 1
1
( )
1
n
in
i

12. i
i
y
y
y
n
s
n
Calculated results display: Write the number of input data
values, and the resulting average and
standard deviation on the worksheet, in properly labeled and
named cells.

13. If the user enters less than 2 data values, display a message in
the cell for the standard deviation
result, alerting the user that at least two data values are required
to calculate a standard deviation.
If any of the user’s data values is not numeric, use a Message
Box to alert the user of this error,
and informing the user which line the error was found on. In
this event, the cells displaying the
calculated results will be blank.
Create a “Run” button to execute your Sub procedure, and test
your Sub by entering at least 20
data values.