Requirements Structuring Phase of the SDLC, computer science homework help

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Based on your consulting company's initial work in discovering the business needs of Mid-Century Modern Décor Unlimited (MCMDU), you now have the following additional information about your client company's processes that will need to be supported by the planned inventory information system:

  1. Addition of new item to inventory system: the marketing/sales staff, in cooperation with the manufacturing staff, transmits the basic information on new products to be added to inventory management on a paper form brought to the inventory management office. This form must contain approval signatures of the Vice President for Operations and the Vice President for Sales. Upon receipt of a correct form (as determined by the Inventory Management staff), the inventory information for the new item is added to the appropriate Microsoft Excel 2010 workbook(s).
  2. Recurring inventory report: the inventory is reported on a monthly basis in printed form and distributed through interoffice mail to the owner, vice presidents, and managers of the manufacturing and marketing/sales departments.
  3. Ad-hoc inventory reports: an ad-hoc report on one or more inventory items may be requested by the owner, vice presidents, and managers of the manufacturing and marketing/sales departments. These requests must be created on a “Special Report Request” paper form brought to the inventory management office. The inventory management staff attempts to produce these reports within two business days of the time of the request.
  4. The inventory management staff will also create an ad-hoc report in printed form upon phone request from either the owner or the company vice presidents. There is not a special form for this request: the inventory management will jot the specifications for the needed report down on paper when called by these individuals with a request. The inventory management staff attempts to produce these reports within one business day of the time of the request.
  5. The inventory management staff maintains the templates for inventory information from the e-commerce retailer customers within a file folder on a hard drive on the PC computer system in the Inventory Management office. Recall from the Background Information section that e-commerce retailers will generally require that their company-specific templates be used when transmitting inventory-related information such as complete product descriptions. Once the templates are populated with the requested information, the Inventory Management staff can transmit that information to the e-commerce retailers by logging in through the retailer’s extranet portal for MDU.

The Tasks:

Using Microsoft Visio (a free download of Microsoft Visio 2013 or Microsoft Visio 2016 is available from your Microsoft Imagine accounts (see Pages tab for Imagine access information in the Canvas course website), develop a Context DFD diagram, a Level-0 DFD diagram, and three different Level-1 DFD diagrams for a proposed processes of inventorymanagement and related logistics issues as described in the business scenario for MCMDU. Your team will need to brainstorm to identify all potential sub-processes and then select and diagram them as appropriate for the three DFD diagrams. See textbook pages 184-203 for a discussion and examples of developing DFDs. See a definition of inventory processes available here (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Other relevant processes in this case are inventory reporting,the production and maintenance of product description templates for ecommerce retailers, and inventory management in the company's outlet stores

Provide all five DFD diagrams on separate pages in a single Microsoft Visio file.

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Case – Mid-Century Modern Design Unlimited Business Case on Mid-Century Modern Décor Unlimited Background Information Mid-Century Modern Décor Unlimited (MCMDU) is a manufacturing business specializing in manufacturing and selling décor items targeted at the global mid-century modern décor market (see this Wikipedia entry for information on this décor style). Currently in its tenth year of operations, MCMDU has grown from a small manufacturing operation with a catalog of ten interior décor items to one that now manufactures in excess of 60 décor items, imports approximately 200 décor items from manufacturing business partners in Asia, and operates two outlet stores within a 250 mile radius of its U.S. manufacturing plant location. The owner of MCMDU, Alexis Harrison, has indicated that the company now has over 80 full-time employees in purchasing, manufacturing, logistics, marketing/sales (wholesale and retail), customer service, inventory management, information technology, human resources, and accounting job roles. In addition to Ms. Harrison, company management includes two vice presidents, one for operations and one for sales, supported by an administrative office staff of five. Ms. Harrison has contracted with your consulting team to manage the design, development, and implementation of a state-of-the-art business system to manage and improve the overall efficiency of the inventory management (which is impacted by manufacturing, marketing/sales, customer service, and logistics processes) in this business environment. Ms. Harrison has specifically identified the need for information systems support to enable more efficient inventory management in dealing with overall inventory maintenance and information access for support of both ongoing company operations and decision making. Ms. Harrison has specified that this system must be complete and operational by March 1, 2018 (it is now June 2017). In addition to the summary above, she has provided you with the following background information about the business: MCMDU has undergone a radical change in its sales channels from one primarily based on salespeople selling to bricks-and-mortar retailers and wholesalers to one in which over 80% of its sales volume is now generated by sales to e-commerce retailers in the global e-commerce arena. Because of this substantial change in sales channels, the existing company processes of inventory management and sales fulfillment are under severe stress in trying to keep up with the demand for product line inventory item information by customers, particularly the e-commerce retailers who are now accounting for the bulk of the company’s sales volume. It is typical that each e-commerce retailer will require a template specific to their own product detailing methodology, so the new system must support multiple potential templates. Currently, the two company employees supporting the inventory management function are maintaining nine Microsoft Excel 2010 workbooks that provide, collectively, comprehensive information on the company’s inventory, which includes both self-manufactured items and items manufactured by the Asian manufacturing business partner companies. Ms. Harrison has told you that the inventory management employees have made her aware of several inefficiencies in their current inventory management system and the associated resources. These employees have reported that different ecommerce retail customers have different inventory information requirements for doing business with MCMDU and that several of those e-commerce retailers require the use of their own proprietary templates to support the provision of information on MCMDU’s items purchased for resale by those companies. At least one of the e-commerce retailers has told Ms. Harrison that the more information that they are able to display on the physical specifications of décor items, the better they tend to sell on their e-commerce website. The differential requirements from multiple e-commerce retailer customers have resulted in processes requiring six to eight hours to retrieve and format the inventory information required on ordered items by just one of those e-commerce retailing customers. This excessive effort is currently necessitated by manually extracting the requested inventory information from the nine Excel workbooks and then placing it in a template containing the required format for that customer. Obviously, MCMDU has a critical need for substantial improvement in processes related to the provision of inventory information for e-commerce customers. Ms. Harrison has told you that your budget for the analysis, design, and implementation involved in this project is $150,000. She has identified the following major requirements for the completed and implemented inventory management system: 1. All inventory information maintained in a single information system 2. Replication of all inventory information in an off-site location to support disaster recovery 3. Easy-to-use, highly secured access for company employees 4. Full query and reporting functionality to support decision making for manufacturing and sales 5. Cost-effective information extraction processes to support e-commerce retailers’ demands 6. Complete end-user and technical documentation to support ongoing use of the system At this point, she has provided you with only the above-described information about the current inventory information provision processes used by the company . She has summarized the current situation as "slow, tedious, and unworkable for supporting both current information demands and anticipated future increases in both an expanded inventory line and in demand based on increasing sales volume to e-commerce retailers."
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