日用雑貨の製造を行う W 社では，業務拡大に向けて販売管理のためのシステム（以下，販売管理システムという）構築を予定している。システム構築のメンバである G 君は，上司の指導の下に RFP を作成して，X 社から提案を受けた。RFP の概要と X 社からの提案は，次のとおりである。 なお，W 社にとって重要な顧客情報の扱いについては，契約時に必要な処置を講じることにした。 〔RFP の概要〕 システムの目的：製造した商品に関して，顧客に対する受注から出荷までの管理を行う。 システムの要件：商品数は，当初は 2,000 品目で，最大 5,000 品目を管理する。顧客数は，当初は 500 社で，最大 2,000 社を管理する。1 日の受注件数は，最大 200 件とする。弊社の規模と業務に合った適切なソフトウェアパッケージの利用を前提とする。 納期：発注から 6 か月以内とする。 〔X 社からの提案〕 導入費用：700 万円 前提条件：Y 社の販売管理ソフトウェアパッケージと Z 社のデータベースソフトを利用し，不足する機能の開発を行います。サーバは CPU が一つのものを 2 台導入します。1 台は本番機とし，もう 1 台は，本番機に障害が発生した場合に稼働させるコールドスタンバイ機とします。 契約条件：要件定義からシステムテストまでの一括請負契約とします。弊社の開発物に関する瑕疵担保期間は，検収後 6 か月とします。 導入期間：4 か月 保守：保守契約を結ぶことによって，導入したシステムに関する問合せ，障害の切分けの対応を行います。 W社はX社の納品したシステムを検収すると同時に，X社と保守契約を結んだ。この翌月に販売管理システムで障害が発生した場合，W社として行うべきことはどれか。
平成23年度 特別試験 ITパスポート試験 問92
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
問 92
Incorrectア
This option has Company W doing both the investigation and the repair on its own, which makes no use at all of the maintenance contract it went to the trouble of signing, so the maintenance fee is wasted. Company W does not necessarily know the internal structure of a system developed by another company, so both investigating the cause and repairing it are realistically difficult. Moreover, if the user side alters the program of the delivered system without permission, it becomes impossible to isolate the cause when a failure occurs later, and this may lead to a situation where Company X refuses to take responsibility, saying “wasn’t it Company W’s modification that caused this?” (treating the case as outside the scope of maintenance and of liability for non-conformity). Because the client is shouldering a responsibility that the vendor should bear, this is inappropriate both contractually and operationally.
Incorrectイ
Two errors are stacked here. First, even though a maintenance contract has been signed, Company W investigates the cause by itself and does not use the service it is entitled to under the contract. Second, when the cause turns out to be a bug in the system developed by Company X, it asks for the repair for a fee. A delivered item that does not work according to the agreed specifications is the supplier’s responsibility (liability for non-conformity with the contract), and there is no reason for Company W to bear the cost of that repair. If the client had to pay extra for fixing bugs, the unreasonable result would be that the worse the quality of the system a vendor delivers, the more that vendor gains.
- ウ
正解 The correct answer is ウ. This question asks you to judge two things against the maintenance contract and the contract terms (the warranty period for defects): who investigates the cause, and who bears the repair cost if the cause is a bug. First, the investigation. Company W signed a maintenance contract with Company X at the same time as the acceptance. In Company X's proposal, this maintenance contract covers “inquiries about the installed system and isolating failures” (identifying where the cause lies). Since Company W can ask Company X to isolate the failure, Company W does not need to track down the cause by itself; the correct action is to ask Company X, which developed the system and knows its internal structure best, to investigate. Next, the cost. If the investigation shows that the cause is a bug in the system developed by Company X, that is a defect in the delivered item itself — it does not work according to the specifications agreed in advance — and the responsibility lies with Company X, the supplier. Under the contract terms, the warranty period for defects in Company X's deliverables is six months after acceptance, and the failure occurred in the month after acceptance, so it falls within that period. Company X therefore bears warranty liability for defects (called liability for non-conformity with the contract under the current Civil Code) and must repair it free of charge. The basis for the free repair is this warranty liability, not the maintenance contract (the maintenance contract in this question covers inquiries and failure isolation, not repairs). A bug found after the period has ended may be charged for unless there is a separate agreement. Therefore ウ — ask Company X to investigate the cause of the trouble and, if the cause is a bug of Company X, have it repaired free of charge — is what Company W should do.
Incorrectエ
The first half — asking Company X to investigate the cause of the trouble — follows the maintenance contract and is correct, but the second half, having the repair done for a fee if the cause is a bug, is wrong. If the cause is a bug in the system developed by Company X, it means the delivered item does not meet the agreed specifications, and Company X has an obligation to repair it free of charge under its liability for non-conformity with the contract. The failure in this question occurred in the month after acceptance, within the warranty period for defects (six months after acceptance). Note that if the cause lies on Company W’s side — an operating mistake, or a breakdown of equipment Company W provided — or if the request amounts to a specification change such as adding a new function, it falls outside the scope of the maintenance contract and may become chargeable. Whether work is charged for or free is decided by asking whether the cause is a defect in the delivered item, and whether it is within the warranty period for defects.
- Purpose and use of a maintenance contract — A maintenance contract is one in which the vendor continuously provides services for a system that is running after delivery, within the scope set by the contract (in this question, answering inquiries and isolating failures), while the user pays a maintenance fee. The principle is that when a failure occurs you first ask the vendor you signed the maintenance contract with to investigate; if the user investigates alone or alters the delivered item without permission, the maintenance fee is wasted and where the responsibility lies becomes unclear.
- A bug in the delivered item is repaired free of charge under liability for non-conformity — When a delivered system does not work according to the specifications agreed in advance, the responsibility lies with the supplier (liability for non-conformity with the contract, formerly warranty liability for defects), and the vendor is obliged to repair it free of charge even if the problem comes to light after acceptance, as long as it is within the warranty period (six months after acceptance in this question). On the other hand, keep this apart from the opposite case: when the cause is an operating mistake on the user’s side or a hardware breakdown, and when the request amounts to a specification change such as adding a new function, the work falls outside the scope of the maintenance contract and may be charged for.