The Missouri Western parking permit system was evaluated by MIS students in Fall 2008. Brief descriptions of the basic system elements are provided below.
| INPUTS: Students, student information (G#, DL#, License Plate #, resident information) |
| OUTPUTS: Parking permits, payment receipt, reports on # of permits issued, # of happy/unhappy customers |
| PROCESSING: Data entry into database, employees servicing customers at windows (handing out permits), queuing, sticker type verification, email notifications, new ID, parking fines resolved |
| FEEDBACK: # of happy/unhappy customers, # of people served per worker, # of people in line, clarify purpose of lines, have open parking, use transferable hangers instead of stickers |
| ENVIRONMENT: College campus in suburbs, students needing employment/internships, opportunity for MWSU to make money to put back into the University |
The Technical components of the system analysis relate to the information collected, processed, stored and distributed. For example, license plate numbers and car descriptions are input and matched to the permit number* created and stored in a database and printed on the sticker given to the customer.
The Behavioral aspects relate to the value (or lack thereof) added by the parking permit process. Examples include the number of happy customers, improvements such as using hanging tags and statistics on length of line & wait times. "Value added" as it pertains to the parking permit process should be clearly defined. If students choose not to attend University because of parking problems, then approaches to resolve this challenge are usually allowed to expand beyond the Technical approach.
*A permit number is like a computer cookie. It has no meaning by itself, but when paired with the matching data in the database, provides details about the car and its owner.