Husky Air Company Charter Redesign

April 17, 2011

Fantastic Group

Bryan Perschbacher

Seth Carter

Brian Munie

Table of Contents

Executive Overview 3

Description of Client and Potential Users 3

Project Scope 4

· Problem Statement 4

· Project Objectives 4

· Project Summary 5

System Justification 6

Resource Requirements 7

Project Plan 8

Project Description 8

External Agent Identification 10

Team Management Policies 10

Description of various system alternatives 11

Process Model 12

Data Model 13

Data Dictionary 14

Screen Designs 16

Report Designs 21

Economic Feasibility Analysis 24

Revised Project Plan 25

Personal Statements 25

· Bryan Perschbacher 25

· Seth Carter 26

· Brian Munie 27

Executive overview

Husky Air is noticing delays in their charter flights system. With the number of people traveling by air rising, Husky Air needs to become much more efficient in planning and executing charter flights for their customers. The current system requires an extensive amount of manually looking up flight information and looking for available planes and pilots. The scheduling is also completed by hand and written out on paper. The current system is also prone to mistakes because of the extensive amount of hands on task. By creating a new system that will replace the manual requirements we are able to eliminate the majority of mistakes and expedite the procedures. Not only will this new system save the company time, the customer can also get information on their flights quickly and in a timely manner. With the current system the customer has to wait until an employee manually looks up all the information. With the computer system, all information will be available quickly and at a moments notice. By also using the new computerized system the amount of time used for backing up the system will be dramatically reduced. This project is projected to be complete on April 19, 2011.

Description of Client and Potential Users

Husky Air is a charter flight service based out of DeKalb, Illinois. The company currently employees 23 employees which includes pilots, mechanics, and office staff. Husky Air not only offers flight services, but flight instruction as well. They have planes from single prop to Citations, and are able to fly a businessperson anywhere they need to go. Husky Air does not use a “commercial airline schedule” allowing them to provide the businessperson with the ability to change their flights because of spur of the moment meeting change. With the new system all 23 employees would be affected. The office staff would have a new system that they would be putting flight information into, while the pilots would also be getting their schedules and flight times from the same system. The mechanics would use the system to see which planes are out of service at the time and need to be scheduled for maintenance or repair.

Project Scope

A)

· Recording of customer requests is time consuming

· Looking up and scheduling of flight times is inefficient

· Using a switchboard operator is unnecessary

· System is prone to errors

· No way to determine frequent flier discounts

· Difficult to look up pilot qualifications

· To reliable on one person being available

· Possibility of double booking

· Poor communication with pilot

B)

· Reduce the amount of time it takes to record customer information

· Reduce the amount of time it takes to look up and schedule flight information for the customer

· Remove the switchboard operator to create a direct line to the department needed

· Automate the system to calculate flight time, cost, pilot, and plane, removing the chances of error in writing down the incorrect information

· Remove the chance of double booking

· Make knowledge of and communication with pilots more easy

C)

· We want to remove pieces of the system that are creating delays and errors. The removal of the switchboard operator and installation of a direct line will reduce the time it takes to get a customer on the line with a specific department by 15%. We want to create a program that will allow the user to enter in their flight specifications (name, address, phone number, destination, number of passengers, and times/dates of travel). By doing this there will be no need for an employee to record this information manually, reducing the cost for paying another employee, and removing the need for the customer to remain on the phone. Past customers will be able to schedule a flight more easily because their information will have been saved in the system. We also want this system to allow the user to know what flight is best suited for their needs by allowing them to enter in their flight specifications and the system choosing the best available flight. This will remove and reduce the time needed for an employee to look up this information and record it manually on paper. Everything would be kept up to date electronically helping reduce the chance of double bookings, and the scheduling of a plane that is not in commission. The system would also be able to handle a program that would give frequent fliers incentives and discounts that they are looking for when scheduling their flights. The program would require no additional information to be input by an employee. The system could automatically keep track of the discounts available to the customer.

System justification

A)

Costs

· development costs, salaries for the developers

· Cost of hardware including server, workstation machines

· Cost of software to be installed on the new system

· Training of new system for the employees

· Maintenance, support, and operational costs

Benefits

· Cut costs with the number of employees needed and the time to record/look-up data

· Increase in efficiency of employee time

· Reduce errors in recording data and booking of flights (no double booking)

· Higher moral due to ease of operations

B)

Customers and people will be the largest risks for our application. This is because the customers outside of the Husky Air staff will have to learn how to use our programs on their own due to the fact that they will not receive training like the staff will. This may result in the loss of some business because customers may not want to take the time to learn how the new system operates.

C)

The current system is very time consuming and prone to errors. If the new charter system is implemented it would increase efficiency and reduce errors. Even with the training for employees and customers, and design and implementation, the project would be feasible. Between cost savings and better customer service the project is a strong candidate for completion. Also, the reduction of many human errors will result in greater profits and higher employee moral. With the employees making fewer errors customers will have confidence that their private information is safe and that their flight plans will not be lost.

Resource Requirements

Human Resource Requirements

· Bryan Perschbacher

· Seth Carter

· Brian Munie

· Husky Air Employee’s

Hardware Requirements

· 3 Workstation machines for office staff, pilots, maintenance

· 3 printers for workstation machines

· Server for information storage

· Network equipment including switches and router

Project Plan

Project Description

In the system that we are going to implement into Husky Air, there will be a lot of upgrades added to the old “system”. To start off the end user will put the customer’s personal information into the system, which will include the customer’s name, address, and phone number. This information will be stored in the customer database to keep track of all of Husky Air’s customers so that this process will not have to be repeated. Next, the customer’s time and date of travel, destination, and number of passengers will be entered into the system. The system will then analyze this information and compute the best plane for the flight and the planes that are available for the time that the customer wants to travel. It will also configure the price that the flight is going to cost. Once the customer picks the flight they would like to take, the customer’s name as well as their flight information will go into the system in a different charter database that organizes the schedule of the flight times as well as showing the booked flight.

At this point, the flight that the customer has chosen will be paired up with a pilot and copilot. The only exception to this is the single prop piper Saratoga, which will only assign one pilot to the flight. Each of the pilots at Husky Air will be uploaded into the system along with their e-mail, phone number, rating for a particular class, type of aircraft, and if they are eligible to fly a aircraft. If the pilot is ineligible to fly a plane, they will not be schedule for that particular flight. When pilots are paired up with a plane, a time, a date, and a destination, the pilots or pilot and the plane will show up as unavailable for the time it takes it takes to get to and from the destination. The system will place each pilots schedule individually in a separate database. When a pilot wants to know their schedule, all they have to do is log into the system and the system will show it. All the information needed can easily be uploaded into the system with the user-friendly interface provided.

As for the current problems that Husky Air ran into, the system completely eliminates these problems. If Husky Air decides that they want to give discounts to customers who have been loyal, they can put how many flights and the distance a customer has traveled and issue the appropriate reward. This information will apply itself to all of the customers who have taken the required amount of flights to get the discount in the customer database. When the customer flies Husky Air after meeting the required amount of flights and distances, the discount will automatically be applied to the next flight the customer takes. When a customer changes their plans, the schedule in the database will automatically schedule for the pilot will be updated. The system will send a notification showing a change in a customer’s plans to the pilot’s email, or emails immediately. As for maintenance that has to be done on the planes, they will be set up to where they are automatically in the systems schedule. Each plane will be put into a maintenance database with a certain time, amount of time repair takes, and how many days until it needs maintenance again. This information will block out the plane in the flight schedule for the time that the maintenance will take from the first day its put down to get repaired. Then it will continued to be blocked out in the flight system by adding the days until next needed maintenance to schedule. As for the problem of double booking a plane, the system will not allow this. Whenever a customer books a plane for a certain time, the system will automatically take the plane out of the choices of planes available for the allotted time in the date given by the customer. With this system, Husky Air will never have to worry about double booking a plane.

External Agent Identification

The external agents of our system are the customer and the employees of Husky Air. The new system will not only improve Husky Airs business, but it will also provide a better service to the customer. However the customer is going to have to become accustomed to the new system just, as the employees will. Employees will benefit from the removal of looking up information. This will also make business run more smoothly, and result in less human error.

Team Management Policies

Currently the fantastic team uses a mix of face-to-face conversation and email. Of these two, methods we spend more time communicating amongst each other through email and meet face-to-face before and after class. We have also came up with methods to keep everyone involved in the project. Whenever we send an email we send it out to all team members so that they are aware of what is going on and taking place.

Description of Various System Alternatives

We have decided to go with the Mid-Level strategy because we feel that it would bring about the most benefits. With the Mid-Level strategy we are able to cover a much more broad spectrum of this system. The Mid-Level strategy would include checking plane availability, changing and canceling flights, scheduling planes and pilots, verifying customer information is correct, and calculating frequent flier miles for the customer. If we were to go with the Bare-bone solution there would be slight changes, but we feel that it would not be enough to help Husky Air increase their efficiency and profits. Bare bones would include entering in the flight information, as well as generating the price of the flight for the customer and the cost of the flight to Husky Air. Finally, if we were to go with the Bells and Whistles strategy we would have hardly made a difference in Husky Air’s efficiency. This is because we feel that e-mailing customer flight information would be the only desirable change to the way the company currently runs.

Process Model

Data Model

Data Dictionary

TABLE: CUSTOMER

Primary Key	Attribute Name	Attribute Definition	Attribute Type
*	CustID	The unique identifier for each customer	8 numeric characters
	CustLastName	The last name of the customer	30 alpha characters
	CustFirstName	The first name of the customer	15 alpha characters
	CustPhoneNumber	The phone number of the customer including area code	10 numeric characters
	CustAddress	The address of the customer	6 numeric characters and 20 alpha characters
	CustBalance	The account balance of the customer	8 numeric characters, with 2 numbers after the decimal

TABLE: CHARTER

Primary Key	Attribute Name	Attribute Definition	Attribute Type
*	CharterID	The unique identifier for each flight	15 numeric characters
	CharterDate	The date for the character in format MM/DD/YYYY	8 numeric characters
	CharterDestination	The unique identifier of the airport destination	4 alpha characters
	CharterDistance	The total miles of the flight	5 numeric characters
	CharterFlightTime	The total minutes of flight time	4 number characters
	CharterFuel	The total gallons of fuel used for flight	5 numeric characters

TABLE: AIRCRAFT

Primary Key	Attribute Name	Attribute Definition	Attribute Type
*	AircraftID	The unique identifier of the aircraft	8 alpha-numeric characters
	AircraftMake	The maker of the aircraft	20 alpha characters
	AircraftModel	The model of the aircraft	20 alpha-numeric characters
	AircraftYear	The manufacturing year of the aircraft	4 numeric characters
	AircraftFlightTime	Total flight time of the aircraft in miles	7 numeric characters
	AircraftSeats	The total available seats for use by customers	3 numeric characters
	AircraftPilotRequirements	The required amount of pilots for the plane	1 numeric character

TABLE: PILOT

Primary Key	Attribute Name	Attribute Definition	Attribute Type
*	PilotID	The unique identifier of the pilot or co pilot	8 numeric characters
	PilotLastName	The last name of the pilot	30 alpha characters
	PilotFirstName	The first name of the pilot	15 alpha characters
	PilotLicense	The pilot license number from the FAA	9 numeric characters
	PilotRating	The rating the pilot is authorized to fly	4 alpha characters

Screen Designs

Report Designs

Economic Feasibility Analysis

Revised Project Plan

Personal Statements

Bryan Perschbacher

I learned a few things working on the Husky Air project. In the past when working on a project, I had never created a ERD or DFD to accompany the work. We would always just start on paper and start drawing what we want the system to look like and do. Using this method, we went back numerous times adding or changing things around. If we would have created a DFD of the system, we could have saved hours of work. Another thing I learned was creating a write-up like this one to explain to the management team. In years past we always went in with a PowerPoint or presentation of why we feel that the system could be updated and how it would be completed. We never gave sample screen shots or examples of reports. Doing this you are able to convey more information to the management team, so that they have a better understanding of the current and the old system. To round up the project as a whole, it was a lot of work, but we had all semester to complete it. I enjoyed working on the components and deliverables and had a great team to join me in the work.

Brian Munie

As I worked on this project, I learned a lot of things that complicate and that help a project get done more efficiently. When I started working on the charter for Husky Air, I saw that a team effort is harder to compile the project than working on it individually. What I mean by this is that everyone wants to work at different paces and communication is a bigger part of teamwork than I made it. I completed work that my group members already did, which was more work in the long run. Therefore, I did not make the project easier on the group, I just the amount of work necessary to complete it harder on myself. The last thing that makes a project harder is not meeting your deadlines or following the schedule that you build for yourself. If I would have followed the deadline a little better than I did, the project would have ran and been accomplished a little smoother than it did. On the other side of things, I think that understanding what you what you are doing in the project is a huge help. This is half the trouble in a project in my opinion. I’ve already taken programming classes and I already sort of have an idea on how databases work. Having group members is also a major help since you can ask them questions if you are not sure on something you are doing on a portion of the project you are working on. So understanding what you are working on and having a group so you can get help definitely moves the project forward to completion. These are my personal thoughts and what I learned from working on Husky Air’s Charter.

Seth Carter

What I have found most beneficial from this project is the experience gained from developing more efficient systems. I feel this project/course will be beneficial to me in the future because it has shown me that I have the ability to develop a system for a company, or potentially a company of my own that will be more efficient and will bring about greater profits. This project has forced me to think out of the box, and to be more creative than I would normally be. It has also taught me how difficult it can be to communicate with a group over a long period of time when not everyone uses the same form of communication.