Background
Trey Research is a national chain of medical
laboratories. An important part of its business involves conducting random drug
tests for trucking companies.
Currently the following procedure is used to administer random drug tests:
·
At
various times throughout the year, trucking supervisors request drug tests from
all drivers
·
Drivers
undergo drug testing at a Trey Research laboratory
·
The
laboratory faxes the results to the appropriate trucking supervisors
·
Drivers
who fail the drug test are put on job probation and are monitored by the
appropriate trucking supervisors. During the probation period, these drivers
are subject to frequent random drug tests
Monitoring the random drug tests during the
probation period is a burden for the trucking companies. They want to outsource
this monitoring to Trey Research.
To meet this objective, the Director of Business Development for Trey Research
recently administered a trial program with a selected trucking company. The
Director's name is Marie.
Trial
Program
The trucking company gave Marie a list of 25
drivers who were on job probation. Every weekday morning, Marie randomly
selected one driver.
All 25 drivers were instructed to telephone a toll-free number every weekday
morning. When drivers telephoned, their names were written in a daily log and
they were informed whether or not they were selected for drug testing on that
day. If they were selected, the drivers were required to report to a Trey
Research laboratory to undergo the test. The laboratory faxed the results to
Marie, rather than to the driver-s trucking supervisor.
At the end of each month, Marie used the telephone log and the laboratory
results to compile a summary report for the trucking company. Marie reported
the number of times that each driver telephoned, the dates when each driver was
chosen and the drug test results.
The report saved trucking supervisors several hours each week. It also provided
a concise record of drug test results and program compliance. The trial program
was considered a success and Trey Research now plans to offer this service to a
number of its customers.
Trey Research contacts you to develop a solution that will provide the
functionality of the trial program and meet a number of new requirements. Your
solution will use the Microsoft .Net Framework and Microsoft SQL Server.
Interviews
IT Department
IT Manager
I employ a small IT staff at the main office to
support our corporate network. We use consultants for all software development.
Our IT staff is already trained to support Microsoft operating systems and
networks, but it will need additional training to support the new solution. The
solution should require minimal administration. As appropriate, we will use
Microsoft technologies for the solution.
We are analyzing the feasibility and expense of hosting the application at our
main office rather than using a hosted facility.
We need a way to import data from laboratory reports, without requiring our
laboratory staff to adopt new procedures. Currently, we have a software package
that can create text files out of fax data by using optical character
recognition (OCR) technology. When a fax is received on a fax server, the OCR
software can save the fax data as a text file in a designated folder. The new
solution must provide the ability to read the text file into a database.
Business Stakeholders
Director of Business Development
The new solution must automate all steps that were
part of the trial program. In the trial program, each driver was randomly
selected about once a month. However, in the new solution, individual drivers
might need to be selected more frequently or less frequently.
We want a web application that enables trucking supervisors to use the Internet
to perform the following actions:
·
Add
and remove drivers from the list of drivers on job probation
·
For
each driver, view a summary of driver compliance and laboratory results, with
the summary ordered by date
·
For
each laboratory result, view result details
·
View
a summary of all driver compliance and results
Trucking supervisors will need to provide a user
name and a password to access the web application. Because drug-testing
information is highly confidential, all information must be transmitted
securely.
Each trucking company can have several supervisors. Drivers can be assigned to
more than one supervisor. Supervisors should have access only to data that
applies to the drivers who are assigned to them.
At the end of each month, an automated report generator will create and print a
report by using a printer on the Trey Research internal network. This report
will be mailed to trucking supervisors and will contain the same summary
information that the web application provides. My most critical requirement is
that trucking supervisors should be able to use the web application to access
test result information as soon as Trey Research completes its testing process.
Each weekday, drivers will telephone an interactive voice response (IVR)
application to learn whether they need to be tested. Telephone callers will use
a personal identification number and a password to identify themselves to the
IVR application. We are hiring an IVR consultant to develop this part of the
solution.
We want a new Web application that drivers can use in addition to the IVR
application. This new application should provide all the functionality of the
IVR application. However, we do not yet know if a typical driver has internet
access, so this part of solution does not need to be completed immediately.
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
We want to begin a pilot program of the solution in
three months. However, we are currently investigating a corporate merger. The
new revenue stream provided by this solution will increase our corporate
valuation. Therefore, if the merger negotiations continue, we want the pilot
program to begin sooner.
Users
Trucking Supervisor
The key to random drug testing is surprise.
Currently a driver on job probation expects to be tested only once each
calendar month. A driver who is tested on the first day of the month might
decide to use drugs for the next few weeks. Therefore, we want to set an
average interval between tests, but we also want to ensure that individual test
dates cannot be predicted.
We have two main objectives. We want to be able to monitor program compliance
throughout the month and we want to be able to view drug test results as soon
as Trey Research completes its testing process.
Business
Process
Drug Tests
Currently, the standard drug test looks for 18
substances. Each substance has an associated status. The three possible status
indications are None, Trace and Detected.
Compliance
A driver is in compliance with job probation when
the following conditions are met:
·
The
driver telephones the IVR application every weekday morning
·
The
driver submits to drug testing on specified days
·
The
driver-s drug test results are negative