"The spreadsheet was never intended to be a permanent solution," he says.

The students, Allee Zhang, Wayne Chung and Leon Loo, built the system from scratch. They developed the model themselves, coming up with several of their own ideas of how to structure the framework. Williams says he didn't have to spend much time supervising the project.

The NIF system operates as a desktop application with web-based components. The students also developed an online tutorial guide to make the system easy to use.

NIF was developed in six months and was ready to go in October. Zhang, Chung and Loo finished Infosys 340 as top students; their project was ranked as number one of all projects in the program.

They all agree that the project gave them significant work experience.