A Management Information System for the National Ocean Service´s Next Generation Water Level Measurement System (NGWLMS)

To effectively manage the development, acquisition, and operation of the NGWLMS, a special purpose management information system (MIS) was designed featuring: project scheduling and cost reporting, item tracking, and document comparison. The NGWLMS project was structured as a six-level, parent/subtask hierarchy with no restrictions on interlevel predecessor task relationships; two categories of task schedules and cost data are maintained--planned and current. Several databases are used to track items, such as equipment, facilities and spare parts. A semi-automated method is provided to aid reviewers in comparing parallel documents, such as proposals vs, specifications or test results vs. test plans. The MIS was written in Ashton-Tate´s dBASE III and Framework software packages, and operates on an IBM PC/AT personal computer.