ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on those organizational reasons that led Parks Canada to develop and automate the economic models. Services are delivered at 34 national parks, 70 historic sites, and 9 historic canals. Because of the size of its operations, Parks Canada recognized in the 1960s the need to use economic models and automation to help it plan and manage its budgets, assets, and services. If a large number of people carry out a large number of separate economic or business analyses, the result can be a lot of analysis done in different and often unknown ways. If an organization places importance on knowing the economic impacts of new and existing parks, the economic impacts of hundreds of major capital proposals, or the life cycle costs of many large projects, a large amount of time and financial resources is going to be needed.
