Introduction

Five years ago, Arnold and Maria Stark opened a string of $5$ Fit$-4-$Life Fitness Centers in urban areas across Pennsylvania. This business was the culmination of a dream of the Starks to open their own health and fitness business, after having worked in this industry for others for several years. There were two fitness centers in the Philadelphia area, and one each in Pittsburgh, Erie, and Harrisburg. As husband and wife, Arnold and Maria have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work together over the last few years in building a successful family business.

Fit$-4-$Life is somewhat different than many other businesses in the personal fitness industry in that it is not simply a gymnasium facility stocked with exercise equipment for use by paying customers. Instead, the Stark's business plan was to create a learning center that emphasized offering classes on fitness techniques and skills that could be learned by patrons from trained instructors. The fees paid by members of the center for these classes make up the largest portion of their revenue.

Fit$-4-$Life offers over thirty different personal fitness courses to its members. Courses include such exercisebased subjects as spinning, yoga, tai chi, weight training, and aerobics. In addition, other fitness$-$oriented topics such as wellness, nutrition and natural medicine have become popular. The Starks feel that the quality of their courses is what distinguishes Fit$-4-$Life from all other fitness centers so quality control is a priority.

All courses are taught by Fit$-4-$Life instructors. Instructors are identified by their Employee Number and also have a name, address, date hired, hourly wage, and instructor rating. The instructor rating is the average of all the scores on that instructor's member rating forms for courses they have taught.

Each course has a unique course number assigned to it when it is created. Additional important information about each course is the course name, description, category $($e$.$g$.,$ novice, intermediate, advanced$),$ duration $($the number of weeks that the course is designed to run$),$ and fee.

Courses are offered periodically in the form of classes. Each class has a unique identifying number called a Reference Number. This is a sequential number that is assigned to a course$-$offering when it is placed on the center teaching schedule. Also recorded on the teaching schedule for each class is the start date for the class, the day$($s$)$ of the week the class will be held $($e$.$g$.,$ M$,$ MWF$,$ TR$,$ etc.$),$ the time period that the class will be held $($e$.$g$.,8$:$00$am$-10$:$00$am$,7$:$30$pm$-9$:$00$pm$,$ etc.$),$ and the instructor. Classroom assignment must also be recorded. The center has seven rooms and all classes are scheduled in of them.

Many of the courses offered at Fit$-4-$Life require special fitness equipment. For example, the spinning course uses state$-$of$-$the$-$art Peloton bikes. The strength training courses use equipment by Bowflex, Nordic Track, and Cybex. The equipment is well maintained and replaced on a regular basis to maintain quality in the classes. For each piece of equipment, we assign a unique EquipmentiD and track the purchase date, purchase price, warranty period, and anticipated replacement date.