Printing Incorporated Book Publishing: System Analysis And Design Report

Company Background

The publishing industry relied on the technology to provide a clear inference on the business process and also to maintain the relationship with various stakeholders. Publishing industry wants to upgrade the technology to speed up the process and also to increase delivery of the expected results. To develop the computerized tracking system, it is required to conduct a system analysis and design for the business. The main purpose of conducting system analysis is to meet the particular needs of a Printing Incorporated Book Publishing. System analysis and design involve four major steps which include identifying the needs of business, planning and analyzing, designing the system, and implementing the system (Rosenblatt, 2013).

Conducting system analysis is mainly aimed to increase the business quality and also to customize the approach. It helps to identify the business opportunities and also problems of the company. The main purpose of the report is to develop and implement information system to improve the business processes and management. Some of the important topics that covered in the report include company background, the scope of the current system, documentation, and set of data flow diagrams. Data flow diagrams include level 0 DFD and entity relationship diagrams for the current system. For completing the report, information is gathered and collected from the journals, articles, books, and reports.  

2. Company background 

The company Printing Incorporate Book Publishing is established in Melbourne city in Australia. It is operating in the field of online publishing in the category of feminine publications. It is a small size company with employee size of 50. But, it got a reputation in short duration in selling e-books and facilitating publishing services over the internet. Nowadays, a growth of internet new options has emerged because the author’s works can be converted into the electronic files and those files can take a print. The technology is increasing day by day so many people are preferring to mobile reading. The company mainly focuses on sales and services and it also offers and promotion service. Products are book publishing, lifestyle books, and business publishing.

Problems:

Currently publishing house is facing many problems in tracking, sales, book in progress, and royalties. It is also facing problems in calculating the performance of sales and also in finding the books. When they need any of the record or file then employees need to search in each bin to find that book based on the author name. The main problem is the company is facing difficulties in getting the combined author list.

To know the status of each book they need to call and know the status. For the employees, it is very hard to monitor the sales record and also to calculate the payments. By these problems, it impacts on the overall business because to search each bin for the book it takes a lot of time and productivity decrease. These are the internal and external problem faced by the company. In order to resolve all the problems faced, Printing Incorporate, need to develop and implement the computerized tracking system with a centralized database.

Problems

By using the current system, the company is experiencing a negative impact on its business operations. There are different illustrations to understand the negative impact due to problems. For the company, it is hard to maintain the sales generated by the different groups and distribution channels. It is not getting sufficient information to determine the performance of sales, calculation of royalty payments for authors, and keeping the records of book sales. The HR staff are spending their valuable time collecting and combining the data from different sales channels manually. The accuracy of information also decreasing due to the manual combining of data. All these problems become obstacles to making good decisions to enhance business performance.  

Currently, there is no computerized tracking system for the incoming documents in the company, they create a document folder for every book-in-process that consists notes from every production staff. The document folder is passed together with numerous plastic bins which represent different phases of the production procedure which include the following: Document Scanning, Initial Gallery Confirmation, Next Gallery Confirmation, Computerized File Generation, Posting in the web, Press Announcements among others. If the staff requires to search for a file, must go through all the bins till is located. In case the author needs to trace the status of his or her article, a lengthy thorough search is carried with consuming a lot of time 

Opportunities

By solving the problems, the company will get more opportunities to increase the sales and business performance by automatic tracking of details with a centralized database system. It helps to the elimination of manual process for getting the required data about book sales, automatic calculation of royalties, and removing the data redundancy problems, and promoting data-driven decision-making into the organization. If the tracking system is developed then the company can easily find out the files where it is placed and can store the complete details about the book that are published (Greco, 2013).

Mainly employees can save time and easily know the status of the books. Not only clarify these problems, but business will also know the complete details of the sales, production, and performance at any time. The company by tackling the current problem of having many salespersons with a different record should focus on having a centralized server in order to monitor all sales hence improving accountability and transparency. The current should consider eliminating the manner of searching a book and try the electronic method.

System objectives: The major objective of the current system includes

• Upgraded technology need to use to develop the system for reducing the issues
• The system must contain the backup facility to ensure the data loss and errors in the system
• A system should allow the user to manage their events and to customize.

Constraints: The constraints related to the current system are

• The requirement of a lot of time and HR staff for manually combining of data
• Facilitation of individual databases for including sales information is constraint related to cost

These are the constraints which are related to the current system.

3. Scope (Current system) 

Functional and Non-functional requirements:

The functional requirements for the current system include:

• The current system must allow online marketing, sales, and distribution
• The system needs to check the status of books and need to inform the authors through message
• The system should allow the tracking of books from the production department
• A system must search the book according to the order (Dennis, et al., 2014).
• The system must permit the customer to stream and download books at homes any time.
• All the books should be made available on the internet over the company website.

The non-functional requirements for the current system include:

• The current system has to available for 24 hours for tracking information
• The system should give maximum performance to meet the sales performance of books
• It should have the capability to overcome the data redundancy problems
• It should be scalable to meet the demand from the consumers for books
• It has to give reliable information regarding sales performance, promotion, books produced and published, and author royalties

Techniques for identifying the use cases

The techniques to identify the use cases include user goal technique, Event decomposition technique, and (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) CRUD technique (Satzinger, et al., 2015). The user goal technique is easy to use. The interviews are conducted with the users of the system to know the tasks of each user. Event decomposition technique helps the identification of different events and involves finding how the system responds to events. CRUD technique helps the identification of data related to each process involved in a system.

1. In between author and book

Data Flow Description Program ID: 1234                                                                   Name: Author Description: Author publishes the book that needs to update in the book record in order to access by the customer.

Source:  Author                                                          Destination: Book

Type of Dataflow       File         Screen          Report             Form            Internal

Data structure traveling with the flow AuthorID, BookID, BookTitle, BookSubTitle, Num_of_Pages, Book_ISBN, PublisherName, PublishedYear, Published_City. These details are required to ensure update the book information by the author in the proposed sales management system.

Opportunities

Table 1: Data flow description

1. Customer and payment

Data Flow Description Program ID: 456                                                                  Name: Customer Description: Customer orders the book and does payment that will be checked by the admin of business.

Source:  Customer                                                  Destination: Payment

Type of Dataflow       File         Screen          Report             Form            Internal

Data structure traveling with the flow CustomerID, Name, BookID, BookTitle, AuthorID, PaymentID, PaymentDate, PaymentAmount, InvoiceID are required information that needs to check by the admin to ensure delivery of the book to the respective customer.

Table 2: Data flow description

1. Salesperson and Book

Data Flow Description Program ID: 789                                                             Name: Salesperson Description: Sales person will update the books which are produced by book publishing.

Source: Salesperson                                        Destination: Book

Type of Dataflow       File         Screen          Report             Form            Internal

Data structure traveling with the flow EmpID, EmpName, BookID, BookTitle, AuthorID are required information to update the book-in-progress process.

                                     Table 3: Data flow description (Benghozi, et al., 2013)

Data element description

Entity Name	Entity Description	Column Name	Column Description	Data Type	Size	Primary Key
Employee	An Employee  who works  in Printing Incorporated Book publishing	EmpID	3 digit alphanumeric (considers sales person’s first and last initials and 1 digit number) and automatic incrementing field that the system will assign to each salesperson	Varchar	50	Yes
EmpName	Sales person’s first and last name	Varchar	50	No
base salary	6 digit field, includes 2 decimals points, consisting of weekly base salary for each salesperson	Double	20	No
Publication_Commission	6 digit field, includes 2 decimals points, consisting of commission amount each sales person to each publication sale	Double	20	No
Promotion_Commision	6 digit field, includes 2 decimals points, consisting of the commission amount to the salesperson for each promotion sale	Double	20	No

 Table 4: Data element description (Zheng, 2017, p. 73).

The above-shown table is a data element description for the data entities. Employee entity is taken as data entities which are used to the clear description of the entities. By this table, it facilitates the appropriate information about the employee entity. The main purpose of the data dictionary is, it prevents the duplicate collection of data elements. The entities come from the database tables and tables are very helpful to know about the system.  

4.2. Process Description

Data flow diagram mainly shows the complete information of the system and the way from where information flows through the system or process. The diagram includes data stores, inputs, outputs, and other processes that shows the flow of data moves. Bhute & Meshram states that by the visualization diagram, the business can know the complete map of the existing system or another plan for the better implementing possible system. A data flow diagram (Level 0) has developed for the business which is very important for the organization because it completely describes the system operation in the business.

Whether that may be for improving the existing processor for developing the new system. The data flow diagram which is drawn is known as a logical data flow diagram which transmits the information from one entity to other entity. Level 0 diagram is known as a context diagram which is the most basic data flow diagram which it makes the connection to the external entities (Bhute & Meshram, 2013, p. 27). The context diagram for the book production and sales tracking system has been developed for the system. External entities for the system includes employee, marketing, author, salesperson, production, customer, and admin.

These are major entities which are required for the system to interact with the customers and business. In the created DFD level 0 diagram, employees involves updating the book details such as publishing details, sales, and royalties. The administrator can view all transaction details includes transaction history generated by the system. The customer can view and place the orders for books by registering into the system. The salesperson can allow updating the book details such as adding discounts. The author publishes the books in the system’ book database. Production department members allowed to add additional details to the book. Marketing staff tracks the market history where a number of targeted customers are high for printing incorporated book publishing organization.

One lower level process description for the system

Process description between sales person and system is: Salesperson need to first register into the system to operate the system. A salesperson will log in into the system and batter the book details. A person can change the book details and add the book details and then add the price set. The salesperson provides an offer or discount details according to the business price.

Modelling for the current system

Identified key events for the system are the salesperson, author, employee, customer, and production. These are major key events for the system.

1. Key Events and Event Table

S.No	Event	Trigger	Source	Use case	Response	Destination
1	Updating the book details	Item Inquiry	Salesperson	Look up for the book	Item availability details	Book
2	Promote the book	Data processing	Marketing staff	Checks the book	Promoted successfully or any error	Book
3	add the book in the catalog	Inquiry of books in the database	Employee	Checks the book details	Added the book successfully or any issues	Book
4	check the book availability	Book inquiry	Customer	Looking for the availability of a book	Details of availability	Customer
5	Deploy the book	Book inquiry	Production department	Check the book availability	Displays the books	Book
6	Customer place order for the required books	New order	Customer	Place order	Order placed successfully	Order
7	Produce a number of books as per customer order	Book Production	Production Dept	Produce a number of  books	Production of books is successful	Books
8	The author wants to publish his/her books	Publish books	Author	Publishing the book	Book published successfully	Book
9	Salesperson sell the book	Viewbook sales	Sales Person	Selling the book	Book sales details Book sales history	Sales
10	Verifying credit/debit card details	Customer payment verification	Financial Dept	Verify payment details	Payment details	Payment
11	Salesperson create the invoice for customer order	Order delivery confirmation	Sales Person	Generate Invoice	Mailed Invoice to customer	Customer
12	View customer queries	Resolving customer queries	Technical Dept	Customer Maintenance	Customer feedback Store customer feedbacks	Customer Feedback
13	Generate reports on production, marketing, sales etc.	Performance of the organization	Admin	Create reports	Books, sales, invoice, payment, promotion, customer feedback, customer, royalties, orders details	All departments
14	Number of Digital e-books details	e-book processing	Digital Dept	Digital books details	A stock of the digital book	Books
15	Author request for royalties	Status of royalties	Author	Inquiry of royalties	Royalty details	Sales Person
16	Salesperson (third Party) adds discounts to books	Increase sales	Third Party Salesperson	Add offer/discounts	Discounts details Sales details Customer orders	Sales Customer, Orders
17	Salesperson request for sales commission	Inquiry of sales commission on each sale of books	Salesperson	Sales commission status	Sales commission details	Admin
18	Salesperson request for promotion commission	Inquiry of promotion commission each promotion of the book	Marketing and promotion staff	Promotion commission status	Promotion commission details	Admin
19	Customer Receive company events	Benefits of purchasing through third-party salesperson/websites	Customer	Receiving company events	Company event details	Third Party Sales Person
20	Customer exchange their ideas with author	Establish communication between customer and author	Customer	Exchange of ideas	Customer views, insights	Author
21	Admin will request to display the payments	Inquiry for payments	Admin	Checks the payment details	Displays the details	Payment
22	Marketing will request to show the history	Inquiry the history	Marketing department	Checks the history	Display history	Record of history

Conclusion

Printer Incorporates Book Publishing is an Independent book publisher which is located in Australia. The company is too small which consists of only 50 employees but it is the leader in growing the industry. The company has many issues with the existing structure and also with the current system. So, a company needs to upgrade in the technology to reduce the issues and also to improve the process. Book publishers are still continuing the pragmatic approach for adoption of technology.

For printing, the eBook there exist many technologies but nowadays many of the people are prefer to download the files and to take the print. To resolve all the issues which exist in the current process need to develop a book production and sales tracking system. For the system, developed data flow diagrams level 0 and level 1 and also the entity relationship diagram. By these diagrams, it clearly understands the flow of information in between the internal and external entities. So, need to develop and implement the book production and sales tracking system in the business for better results and also for resolving the issues. It will 100% accuracy and reduce the time for the employees in searching the files from the bins.

References

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