Information Systems Analysis And Design For System Development

Approach to Systems Development

Discuss about the Information Systems Analysis and Design for System Development.

The report is based on Australian Labs, which provides with lab testing services to the clients, doctors and medical businesses. The head technician of the Australian Labs, Jim Larsen has recommended changing the outdated inventory tracking system. The aim of the report is to implement an Inventory Tracking Information System for Australian Labs with updated information system that should use the barcodes as well as modern database in order to keep track of the customer test requests.

The project objectives are as follows:

• To implement an inventory tracking information system for Australian Labs
• To identify the functional and non-functional requirements of the system
• To keep track of the customer test requests and give updated information to them

The two approaches for developing the system are as follows:

Traditional approach: This approach appears at the system from top-down sight. It is a systematic approach in which after completion of one phase, it moves to other (Kerzner 2013). After completion of each phase, a milestone is reached and the stakeholders approve the documentation of the inventory tracking system.

Object oriented approach: This approach views the system from bottom-up view. It also views the information system as gathering of cooperating objects that work to complete the tasks (Burke 2013). The objects are considered as contracts, customers and suppliers.

System analysis is the process to collect data, understand the processes involved in implementation of the system, identification of the issues and then recommending feasible suggestions to improve the functions of the system (Rouwendal 2012). The activities that this phase of system development life cycle consists are study of business processes, gather operational data, identify the flow of information, identify the bottlenecks and recommend solutions to overcome the weakness of the system.

Six sources of software are:

1. Information technology service firms
2. Vendors of the enterprise solution software
3. Open source software
4. Packaged software providers
5. In-house development
6. Application service provider

In order to buy an off-the-shelf software options, the company should compare the products and its vendors (Gido & Clements 2014). The criteria, which are used such as cost, support from vendor, functionality, flexibility, time of response, ease of installation and documentation.

In the given case study, off-the-shelf software should be used for implementation of inventory tracking system as it has the following applications:

Spreadsheet application: It uses to calculate the stock control system, company’s accounts and payments.

Database application: It keeps the customer’s records and records of sales.

Web Design application: It creates personal as well as business web sites.

Word processing application: It writes the reports, letters to customers.

Functional Requirements

The main principle of the inventory tracking system is to raise the sales of Australian Labs by creating inventory records of stock, details of the customer’s purchases as well as sellers at the lab and receipt details (Ferrucci, Harman & Sarro 2014). The following are the functional requirements of the system:

Requirement Name	Description
Log in	This function will enable the inventory manager to log in into the system.
Change of password	This function will enable the inventory manager to change the password of the system.
Viewing the status	This function will allow the salespersons to observe the status.
Check of receipt	This function will permit to check the receipt.
Search of item	This function will enable to search for the item in the database of the system (Wohlin et al. 2012).
View of sold item	This function will allow selling the objects to the customers.
View of feedback	This function will facilitate the salespersons to outlook the customer’s feedback.
Check for stock	This function will allow checking for the stock within the inventory.
Check for inventory status	This function will allow the inventory manager to check for the details in the system  (Zhang & Babar 2013).
Validation of report	This function will allow authenticating the inventory report.
Generation of trend	This function will facilitate the inventory manager to create trend.
View of report	This function will allow the inventory manager to sight the final inventory reports.

Six sources of software

Non-functional requirements

The inventory manager should access their accounts for 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The non-functional necessities of the system are as follows:

Security: The system should be password protected from the unauthorized users by using strong password technique (Andreasen et al. 2015). The system gives error when someone enters wrong username and password.

Performance: The time system should respond when the authorized user gives the username as well as password. The system should respond within fewer than 2 seconds.

Availability: The system should have 4-5 users and they should use the system during the operating hours.

The purpose of the cost benefit analysis is to evaluate that estimates the value of the projects in order to determine if the project is worth undertaking as well as continuing. It is considered as a business-planning tool that uses to involve and compares the likely costs as well as benefits of the projects in order to choose that provide the greatest net benefit (Rouwendal 2012). The objective of the cost benefit analysis is to compare the projects. The projects are compared based on the actual financial costs as well as benefits. In this project, the cost benefit analysis is negative with negative ROI of -0.13.

Table 1: Cost benefit analysis

Work Breakdown Structure

WBS	Activities
1	Inventory Tracking Information System
2	Identifying the needs of the system
2.1	Meeting with the inventory manager
2.2	Identifying the specification
2.3	Approval of the project plan
3	Purchase of the system equipments
3.1	Review the equipments
3.2	Order of the equipments
4	Set up the inventory system
4.1	Installation of the electrics
4.2	Installation of network
4.3	Installation of software
4.4	Testing for the inventory system
4.5	Maintenance of the system
5	Set up training program
5.1	Set up inventory system
5.2	Identification of the training staffs
5.3	Hire of the trainer
6	Completion of the project plan

Project Schedule

WBS	Activities	Duration	Start	Finish
1	Inventory Tracking Information System	34 days	Mon 8/1/16	Thu 9/15/16
2	Identifying the needs of the system	7 days	Mon 8/1/16	Tue 8/9/16
2.1	Meeting with the inventory manager	3 days	Mon 8/1/16	Wed 8/3/16
2.2	Identifying the specification	2 days	Thu 8/4/16	Fri 8/5/16
2.3	Approval of the project plan	2 days	Mon 8/8/16	Tue 8/9/16
3	Purchase of the system equipments	7 days	Wed 8/10/16	Thu 8/18/16
3.1	Review the equipments	3 days	Wed 8/10/16	Fri 8/12/16
3.2	Order of the equipments	4 days	Mon 8/15/16	Thu 8/18/16
4	Set up the inventory system	9 days	Fri 8/19/16	Wed 8/31/16
4.1	Installation of the electrics	2 days	Fri 8/19/16	Mon 8/22/16
4.2	Installation of network	2 days	Tue 8/23/16	Wed 8/24/16
4.3	Installation of software	2 days	Thu 8/25/16	Fri 8/26/16
4.4	Testing for the inventory system	1 day	Mon 8/29/16	Mon 8/29/16
4.5	Maintenance of the system	2 days	Tue 8/30/16	Wed 8/31/16
5	Set up training program	8 days	Thu 9/1/16	Mon 9/12/16
5.1	Set up inventory system	3 days	Thu 9/1/16	Mon 9/5/16
5.2	Identification of the training staffs	3 days	Tue 9/6/16	Thu 9/8/16
5.3	Hire of the trainer	2 days	Fri 9/9/16	Mon 9/12/16
6	Completion of the project plan	1 day	Thu 9/15/16	Thu 9/15/16

Figure 1: Gantt chart

(Source: Created by author)

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) classifies the tasks as well as deliverables within the project plan. It is used to conclude the critical path of the project actions and then generate a schedule of the project (Ren et al. 2014). After creating the project schedule, Gantt chart is used to graphically represent the schedule.

System Goals

The goal of inventory tracking system is to provide the staffs accountability and minimize the inventory stock outs. It tracks and reviews the sales of Australian Labs in regular basis (Bacchelli & Bird 2013). It also ensues for accuracy of inventory systems. Its goal is to keep the inventory database up to date.

System Requirements

The system requirement is to help in the customer’s query whether the required item is in the stock and the inventory manager views the demand of the items.

System Scope

The scope of the system is to develop their outdated inventory tracking system in order to develop their daily sales, payment as well as maintenance of the items. It performs the automation of the inventory items in a systematic way (Cao et al. 2013).

Systems Requirements

Discussion

The project schedule is reasonable, as the goal of the project plan is to finish the project within time as well as budget. It follows all the project guidelines and follows the rules and regulations of the Australian Labs.

Involvement of the stakeholders

The stakeholders involved with the development plan are Jim Larsen, the head technician of Australian Labs, Inventory Manager, Customers, and salespersons, Resource Manager, Project Manager, System Analyst and Senior Manager.

Three traditional investigation techniques are categorized as follows:

Interview: It is a face-to-face technique to collect information from the customers of the system below the examination (Stark 2015). It consists of particular questions to get the information on the proposed system.

Questionnaire: It consists of standard set of questions. It is distributed to the users of the system electronically.

Observation: This technique consists of examining the procedures that are carried out while implementing the system into the Australian Labs. The System Analyst observes the procedures while carrying out with existing system.

Among the three investigation techniques, questionnaire is the best option as it consists of standardization of questions and there is lack of personal contact. Even the gathered information is suitable for statistical analysis.

Usefulness of three investigation techniques

Interview: It is useful as it gives complete and accurate information from the interviewer. It attains high rate of response from the respondents (Zhang & Babar 2013). As it is a face to face method, therefore the interviewer should have control over the interview and they focus on the track to complete the project plan in schedule time.

Questionnaire: It is a practical method and large amount of information are collected from large number of population within short period (Gido & Clements 2014). It increases the efficiency of the system by gathering different views on the use of the system.

Observation: It is direct method to collect the information and the collected data are accurate and reliable. It reduces the problems of dependent on the respondents to give their feedback on the system.

Reflections and Conclusions

From the entire project report, it has examined that the new proposed inventory tracking information system for Australian Labs ensures that the time for request to test, payment method and accompanying trails, processes are consumed.  It automates the business process of their lab testing services by recording the details of the customers, production of management information reports, and reordering of stock at proper time.

It is concluded that the project study examines the effectiveness of the information system in order to access the performance of the planned inventory system. The aim of this proposed system is to satisfy the customers with the automated inventory system by reducing the occurrence of errors while updating the details of customers.

References

Andreasen, MS, Nielsen, HV, Schroder, SO & Stage, J 2015, Usability in open source software development: Opinions and practice.Information technology and control, vol. 35, no. 3.

Bacchelli, A & Bird, C 2013, Expectations, outcomes, and challenges of modern code review. In Proceedings of the 2013 international conference on software engineering (pp. 712-721). IEEE Press.

Burke, R 2013, Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.

Cao, L, Mohan, K, Ramesh, B & Sarkar, S 2013, Adapting funding processes for agile IT projects: an empirical investigation. European Journal of Information Systems, vol. 22, no. 2, pp.191-205.

Ferrucci, F, Harman, M & Sarro, F 2014, Search-based software project management. In Software Project Management in a Changing World (pp. 373-399). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Gido, J & Clements, JP 2014, Successful project management. Nelson Education.

Kerzner, HR 2013, Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Ren, N, Drake, JR, Li, Y & Reed, AH, 2014, Review and outlook of work breakdown structure for complex product manufacturing. International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, vol. 28, no. 4-6, pp.200-216.

Rouwendal, J 2012, Indirect Effects in Cost-Benefit Analysis. Journal Of Benefit-Cost Analysis, vol. 3, no. 1.

Stark, J 2015, Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (pp. 1-29). Springer International Publishing.

Wohlin, C, Runeson, P, Host, M. Ohlsson, MC, Regnell, B & Wesslen, A 2012, Experimentation in software engineering. Springer Science & Business Media.

Zhang, H & Babar, MA 2013, Systematic reviews in software engineering: An empirical investigation. Information and Software Technology, vol. 55, no. 7, pp.1341-1354.