SPREADSHEET ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

Spreadsheet programs and microcomputers have revolutionized information processing in organizations. Users have adopted spreadsheets to solve problems and circumvent the long delays encountered in dealing with the traditional information services department. A significant number of serious errors have been reported through the misuse of spreadsheet technology. This paper discusses several different contexts for the development of spreadsheet models and presents structured design techniques for these models. The recommended approach to spreadsheet analysis and design encourages the use of a block structure format for the worksheet and introduces Spreadsheet Flow Diagrams as a systems design tool. The objective of this design approach is to reduce the probability and severity of spreadsheet errors, improve auditability and promote greater longevity for spreadsheet models.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Spreadsheet Accuracy Theory

Electronic spreadsheets have made a major contribution to financial analysis and problem solving processes. Decisions made using these tools often involve substantive consequences for the organizations. However, academic literature reveals that experienced professionals and students make many errors when developing spreadsheets. Practitioners recognize the importance of accuracy and have published many techniques they use for improving the accuracy of their spreadsheets. Systematic evaluation of this literature provides a basis for understanding practitioners’ perceptions of how and why errors occur in spreadsheets and is also valuable source from which to identify a theory of spreadsheet accuracy and capture the knowledge of experienced spreadsheet developers. The analysis of this literature suggests three categories of issues spreadsheet developers must address to create more accurate spreadsheets including: planning and design; formula complexity; and testing/debugging. Spreadsheet accuracy theory explains and predicts how changes in development processes can be expected to impact spreadsheet accuracy

Interactive” steel plate girder analysis & design computer program for bending moment capacity / Siti Zubairiyah Al Zubir

The study focused on the development of a computer program for steel plate girder design by using a Visual Basic Application (VBA) which is embedded in Microsoft Excel. The analysis and design is base on BS 5950:2000. It develops for an academic computer program for designing moment capacity of steel plate girder structure and produces a user friendly computer program to assist the lecturer and student. The new developments in the computer program are producing graphical information, have detailed calculation step output of the moment capacity plate girder design that helps the lecturer to teach. The general loading analysis can analyze any possibility of load configurations. Programming as it relates to spreadsheet use is essentially the process of building application that use a spreadsheet rather than a traditional programming language such as VBA or BASIC. The advantages of using spreadsheet application are to provide the appropriate solution to the problem, it also produces accurate result and user interface is clear and consistent, so that the users always know how to proceed

Rdesign: A data dictionary with relational database design capabilities in Ada

Data Dictionary is defined to be the set of all data attributes, which describe data objects in terms of their intrinsic attributes, such as name, type, size, format and definition. It is recognized as the data base for the Information Resource Management, to facilitate understanding and communication about the relationship between systems applications and systems data usage and to help assist in achieving data independence by permitting systems applications to access data knowledge of the location or storage characteristics of the data in the system. A research and development effort to use Ada has produced a data dictionary with data base design capabilities. This project supports data specification and analysis and offers a choice of the relational, network, and hierarchical model for logical data based design. It provides a highly integrated set of analysis and design transformation tools which range from templates for data element definition, spreadsheet for defining functional dependencies, normalization, to logical design generator

On-Bottom Stability of Submarines Pipelines

This report basically discusses preliminary research done and basic understanding of the chosen topic, which is 'On-Bottom Stability' of submarine pipelines. Ihe objective of' the research is to produce the working spreadsheet that can calculate and design the on-bottom stability analysis using the MathCAl) software. The working spreadsheet will give other option to the engineer for analyzing the on-bottom stability of submarine pipeline using the Generalized Stability Analysis Method rather than using the Simplified Stability Analysis Method.The scope of study in this project is to gather the detailed design of the submarine pipelines, type of waves, characteristic of the load and material specification fir the submarine pipelines. The outcome expected from this project is determination of the stability requirements 1or designing submarine pipeline

Analysis and improvement of business process models using spreadsheets

Software in general is thoroughly analyzed before it is released to its users. Business processes often are not - at least not as thoroughly as it could be - before they are released to their users, e.g., employees or software agents. This paper ascribes this practice to the lack of suitable instruments for business process analysts, who design the processes, and aims to provide them with the necessary instruments to allow them to also analyze their processes. We use the spreadsheet paradigm to represent business process analysis tasks, such as writing metrics and assertions, running performance analysis and verification tasks, and reporting on the outcomes, and implement a spreadsheet-based tool for business process analysis. The results of two independent user studies demonstrate the viability of the approach