Web-based Resource Planning System

This Bachelor thesis describes several important phases of a software development project: the assessment of user requirements, the evaluation of software, and a proof-of-concept for in-house development.

The goal of this thesis is to provide the process development area of Novartis with a proposal to replace their existing application for capacity planning. The proposed application should facilitate planning for the users and should enable management to visualize the utilization of personnel and devices in order to identify possible bottlenecks.

The user requirements specified herein were established in interviews with scientists of Novartis and form the basis for the evaluation. The user requirements are important for software suppliers to understand the requirements of their customers and to assess the time required for the development of the application. Documenting the customers expectations enabled a proper evaluation based on the user requirements and generally accepted guidelines for software evaluation. The evaluation was conducted in order to compare the option of using an existing application to the option of developing a new application from scratch.

Two candidates of existing software were selected based on the user requirements within the Novartis software portfolio. All three options were evaluated and rated based on the guidelines. The evaluation demonstrated that a custom solution is the suitable option for the specific requirements of the laboratory and that these requirements cannot be satisfied by the off-the-shelf solutions available.

The results of the evaluation led to the determination that a proof-of-concept for a custom solution should be established. The custom application tries to completely match with the user requirements already established in the first phase of the thesis. The proof-of-concept confirmed that a custom web application is able to satisfy all requirements of Novartis. Finally a proposal on how to replace the current unsatisfactory Excel implementation was given to Novartis.