A Model for Automating File and Program Design in Business Application Systems This paper discusses a model for finding an efficient implementation of a business application system whose logical specifications have been determined in advance. The model views file and program design as a problem of systematically coordinating the configurations of datasets and computations. It uses a straight forward search technique to determine aggregations of computations, aggregations of datasets, device, organization, and key order for each data set, key order for each computation, and access method for each dataset-computation pair. Although computational results are presented for a sample problem involving 54 computations and 49 datasets, the main point of the paper is that the underlying model works computationally an d is simple enough to be adapted to many file design situations. CACM June, 1979 Alter, S. System design, automatic programming, search methods, system configurations, design choices 4.12 4.22 4.6 CA790603 DH August 21, 1979 4:25 PM 3147 4 3147 2718 5 3147 3147 5 3147 3147 5 3147 3147 5 3147