CIS 8020 Assignment 2 AO Google Static Maps

A company in California manufactures and sells laboratory instruments and employs over 40 sales and service personnel, who are each based in various geographic parts all over the country. Sales people visit their local hospitals and laboratories, while service people stay on call and move from client site-to-site to perform maintenance and repairs on existing units. The headquarters in California must constantly be aware of the whereabouts of the sales/service in the field, so that when an emergency arises, HQ can properly allocate the job to the field person who happens to be the nearest.


Using Google's Static Maps API, the headquarters can update whereabouts of the people in the field, however often they decide would be necessary, map-pointing points of emergency against that of where a nearby field person is.
For instance, the field service rep. serving the Atlanta territory serves the states of Georgia, northern Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. When an emergency arises and the person serving North Carolina is not available, the management may look at where reps currently are and make the decision to dispatch whoever is nearest at the moment.


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This API was chosen because of the simplicity it offers, and the company's needs are simple enough as well to be well served by the API. Being simple to implement and use offers the ability for quick updates, which is important since the locations for the people in the field are constantly changing.