PRG/211 ALGORITHMS AND LOGIC FOR COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
06/30/2013

Abstract:
“To solve the problem of time-cost tradeoff in project management with available models, a choice must be made between heuristic approaches and algorithms based upon restrictive assumptions about the shape of the cost-time functions of the activities. The algorithm presented in this article involves a dynamic-programming approach to determine the allocation which minimizes the duration of the project (critical path). The main advantage of this model is its ability to determine the optimum allocation among activities with arbitrary cost-time functions. Also, computational shortcuts for functions with special properties can be used to increase the efficiency of the model” (Don Robinson 158-166).

Programming solutions . Developers who program for any project has multiple requirements to be met. The key is understanding the problem to be familiar with the business. A visionary understanding the management of the business. Then a visual plan must be drawn with a step by step process to understand the goals of the company. It is easy to do this if you are the owner of the company and it is difficult to bring it to the IT/developer of the company. I have experienced this personally via my small business even though I tried desperately to bring my ideas, there was always a gap bringing the need and the vision. IF we discuss the need, we had to set multiple meetings where the developer had researched the system and saw the flaws with his own ideas on how to improve it. It was very much explaining my ideas between verbal explanation and his own research. To bring the vision to the table of discussion was a complete different ball game. There are many examples of other companies that were ahead of me and larger than my company that had their vision accomplished whereas I had 80%. The 20% leftover were still my personal ideas.
This is my company description. I am in the service of electronics. We repair all TV’s, computers and hardware. We do custom home automation home theatre system installations and we bring the link between the internet and consumer entertainment. All of this requires manual labor. The only thing missing from the cycle was the sale of the equipment and for us to bring that as a small business was hard to keep so many inventories in the books. This was a big burden on the financial part of the company. We needed a system that could present the product virtually where the customer could shop from us from anywhere and we could claim that we had it in stock, even though we had it in stock virtually. This is what brought me to Phoenix University and to learn what I am learning today. As personal as this, the question is literally in my back yard.

Let’s discuss each item separately. A website that can rank on Google and Yahoo SEO (service engine optimization) properly. The website must be easy to look at, attractive, full of content, and easy to research.
Inventory. We needed a distributer, not best buy, “a company that doesn’t sell to the public, only dealers”. They must carry multiple products, at least most of what we need. We needed to build a link between our website and their inventory to know that every five minutes the changes of that inventory. A system capable to ship the product from any warehouse of the distributer within the country to the consumer seamlessly to the customer and what I mean by this a lable to tag the merchandise with my company’s name.
The details of the product, since all of my customers have custom products, we need a full description such as height, weight, depth, and color of the product. This is essential because when the customer purchases their product he knows exactly what he’s buying. This reduces exchanges and other hassles.
Finally, we needed a payment processing system where the customer could pay with any method they prefer such as checks or credit cards and schedule delivery and installation based on their schedule and convenience. Now after studying this class, I found a modular development would work very well. Remember, to build a website was a very easy task. We can find these templates online. To find a distributer, it wasn’t difficult as well. To link both the site and the distributer it was a task. We needed to write a program that matches or converts their data to the site that we’re building and keep it live feed with automatic updates in a timely manner. By the description that we have done so far, this was a detailed process of thought and a vision from me to the developer.

Works Cited * Robinson, D. (1975). A dynamic programming solution to cost-time tradeoff for cpm. Mangement Science, 22(2), 158-166. Retrieved from http://mansci.journal.informs.org/content/22/2/158.short