Question 1 From the Mid-Western Bookstore case study background and interview tr

Question

Question 1

From the Mid-Western Bookstore case study background and interview transcript below, answer the following questions. State any assumptions that you make. Note that all question parts do not carry equal marks.

(a) Critically appraise how well you think Louise conducted the interview with Steve McKay. In your appraisal comment generally on the interview. 20 marks

(b) Model the existing activities of the bookshop with a Functional Decomposition Diagram. 9 marks

(c) Further model the system as specified with the following:

• An Entity Relationship Diagram for the system with primary and foreign keys

• A sample UML Use Case Diagram for an important aspect of the system

• A sample Activity Diagram for an important aspect of the system 21 marks Total marks: (50 marks)

Background:

The Mid-Western Bookstore is located on the campus of Mid-Western State University and serves over 30,000 students and academic staff as well as the immediate environment. The twenty-seven staff in the bookstore come from a variety of backgrounds. Pat Higgins, the manager of the bookstore, has identified the requirement for a new system. The primary reason for this has been his decision to start an on-line mail order service for other schools in the state and elsewhere. He expects that this diversification will mean significant re-organization for the company as a whole and not just for the computer system. Pat has solicited Cetera Systems to produce a design for the new system. Louise Mannion has been appointed as the lead analyst consultant to liaise with Mid-Western Bookstore. Pat has met with Louise twice describing his vision for the new system and a quick overview of the existing system. In their first meeting Pat outlined what he wanted the new system to do. Louise had to work hard at getting an idea of what the existing system actually did. She managed to get Pat to explain that the functionality of the existing system primarily involves: handling Lecturer Book Requests; Student Book Requests; Book Returns; Stock-takes; Consolidating Orders; Placing Orders; Selecting 3 Other Texts; Receiving Orders; and Accounts Payable. Following the first meeting Louise drafted a functional decomposition diagram to communicate her understanding back to Pat. In it she broadly divided the system into two sub-systems dealing with sales and stock management, and placing and receiving orders. She was conscious that Pat had described significant problems with staff complaining that they spend too much time operating the manual system, and complaints from university staff and students. For example lecturers express annoyance that incomplete RTLs are returned even though information on just one of the ordered books is incomplete, and students frequently complain that reserving a book does not guarantee that there will be one set aside for them when they collect. In their second meeting Louise wanted to hone in on the problems identified previously but all Pat was concerned with was visioning broad requirements for the new system. At the end of the meeting Louise requested (with some insistence) to meet with someone to describe the existing operations so that she might understand comprehensively how it worked and how it might be improved. Pat felt this was going backwards and, probably a little unhappily, suggested she talk to Steve McKay, the Sales Manager. Louise assured Pat that she was keen to get going with the design for the new system but felt a little adrift until she firmed up on her understanding of the existing operational system. Their meeting concluded and Louise breathed a sigh to herself that this project was not likely to be an easy one. The following Monday Louise had arranged a meeting with Steve McKay in his office. Louise prepared well and felt that she would get a good understanding of the operational system from their meeting. The following is a transcript of the interview. Transcript:

Louise: Hi Steve, many thanks for taking the time to meet with me. As I explained in the email I really want to get a good understanding of how the system operates in practice before we design a new one. I know Pat is keen to get the project going.

Steve: Not a bother, delighted that we are going to ‘modernize’ things around here. We have a pretty manual set-up and it would be great to get access to databases that might make my job a bit easier!

Louise: Great! Pat gave me a good idea of what he wants in broad terms from the new system but I really feel I need a handle on the existing system before we can address the new one. Am I right in saying that there are two major areas of operations: sales and stock management, and placing and receiving orders?

Steve: Absolutely – we have the shop duties that mainly involve taking orders, sales and returns, and placing orders with the publishers. Oh, and doing stock-takes and monitoring stock – that’s Mary Lee’s side of the house.

Louise: What does taking orders involve?

Steve: Well, lecturers send in Recommended Text Lists (sometimes called a Textbook Master List) to the Bookstore on which they itemize the books that are recommended to students on a particular course, or module as they call it. This usually 4 happens twice a year in July/August and November/December in preparation for the commencement of each semester. However, they may be received at any time.

Louise: Is it a manual form?

Steve: Yes but if we could make it electronic that would be great.

Louise: We can definitely look at that. What do you do with the Recommended Text List?

Steve: The Recommended Text List or RTL is checked by the Inventory Assistant for completeness. If any pertinent information is missing the Incomplete RTL is returned to the lecturer in question with an accompanying hand-written note requesting the necessary information. This practice has had complaints from some lecturers because it holds up the ordering of other texts since there is often more than one text being ordered. The Complete or Valid RTLs are then given to the Sales Assistant for further processing.

Louise: What does the Sales Assistant do with them?

Steve: Complete or Valid RTLs are then processed. If the books are in stock then the lecturer is notified.

Louise: How?

Steve: Oh we just drop an email, nothing too official. Louise: O.K., go on.

Steve: The Inventory File is checked to see if the books are in stock. A Sales Assistant will usually check if the existing stock was previously ordered by the lecturer who is requesting this text. The existing stock in the storeroom is sometimes checked. The Recommended Text List is modified by the Sales Assistant who deletes lines where all the texts required are in stock, or reduces the number to be ordered by the number of texts in stock.

Louise: What happens next?

Steve: Each of the texts to be ordered on the amended Recommended Text List is then checked against the International Academic Editions Website. If the text is not in print the lecturer is informed and if the edition is new or different then the lecturer is informed by email or telephone and the text is either confirmed or cancelled by the lecturer.

Louise: Does it often happen that the edition might be different?

Steve: It does actually, especially for high volume texts since the publishers are happy to produce new editions to promote sales, even when there are few changes to the new edition. It drives lecturers daft!

Louise: I can imagine! And costly for students too. Is the RTL finished with then? 5

Steve: Pretty much, the Recommended Text List is now formally 'approved' and it is placed in the Recommended Text List tray that the Accounts Clerk uses to process the placing of orders.

Louise: Do you have any other interactions from lecturers?

Steve: Occasionally a lecturer will make an inquiry about a text, and the Sales Assistant will check the International Academic Editions Website or the Inventory File to get information on the text availability, price and edition. The number of texts in stock on the inventory file is sometimes out of synch with the actual number in stock.

Louise: O.K. I’ll just jot this down. Can we move on to student requests?

Steve: Sure – we get requests from students for specific texts, sometimes for texts ordered by lecturers but not received, and sometimes not. When the text is not in stock students complete a Book Request Form.

Louise: If they have several requests what do you do?

Steve: Sure I see what you mean - one Book Request Form is completed for each text a student wishes to order. These can be left in a collection box inside the door of the store. Effectively this form acts as a reservation on a text when it comes in. Their email address is taken and they are usually contacted. Obviously other students will ask if a text has come in and will buy it directly without completing a Book Request Form.

Louise: Do you put the reserved texts aside?

Steve: Normally but life’s imperfect! This sometimes creates a problem if we haven’t done so. It is difficult to make sure that as orders come in we set aside all book requests. When we do we insert the Book Request Form inside the cover of the text.

Louise: You could get the new system to print off the reservations as soon as the new stock is recorded in the system?

Steve: I can tell you that staff would award you a medal for that; it has been a pain running the reservations. In fact we have been considering getting rid of it for lecturer recommended texts.

Louise: Are you done with the requests from students then?

Steve: I suppose finally, when a student purchase is made they receive a Cash Register Sales Receipt.

Louise: Great! Can you describe how you deal with returns?

Steve: Sure. The Inventory staff are generally responsible for identifying books to be returned. There are normally three reasons. If old editions of a text are in stock these are automatically boxed for return when a new edition is received. Second, sometimes books are not selling. A general rule of thumb is if a book has not been sold for three months or if fewer than 10% have been sold in the past three months. Thirdly, sometimes it is obvious that some books of a batch should be returned. For example, of a new batch of say 50 books only 10 have been sold by mid-semester then it is unlikely 6 that all the remaining 40 books will be needed. In such a case the Inventory Manager, Mary Lee, and myself might agree to return 30.

Louise: O.K., what do you do then?

Steve: The Inventory Assistant boxes the books, writes the quantity on what we call an Order Batch Card, sellotapes it to the box and leaves it for the attention of the Accounts Clerk. They take care of the accounting aspect of returns.

Louise: Should I talk to them about their role?

Steve: Yeah, I think you should. I am not too sure what they do after that.

Louise: Whom should I talk to about the placing and receiving of orders?

Steve: Well, Tom Duffy in Accounts deals with placement of orders and Mary Lee handles receiving orders into inventory.

Louise: O.K., finally can you identify particular problems the current system has in dealing with difficult or extraordinary situations?

Steve: Sure there are lots! Lecturers complain loudly about the time it takes to respond to requests from lecturers about the status of their order.

Louise: Well we should definitely be able to improve that with the new system.

Steve: How can we do that?

Louise: Well as soon as orders are entered on the system staff can get that information instantly.

Steve: Ah, what I mean is that before we receive the order we don’t have any information about when the order is going to come in. We just say books will normally be in within 2 weeks, which is true but in reality we haven’t a clue when the order is going to arrive!

Louise: Can you get any information on the order from the publisher?

Steve: Every publisher is different so it is a lot of effort to figure out details on a particular order.

Louise: Do you want to respond more completely to lecturers if it is enabled by the new system?

Steve: Sure, if it is easy enough to do it.

Louise: Well we can mark it down for investigation. Are there any other issues?

Steve: Not really, I think we are happy enough with the way it works.

Louise: All right our hour is pretty much up so what I might do is document my understanding of the way the system works in practice and get your feedback when we 7 meet to identify your needs for the new system. Can we meet on Friday around 10am if that suits?

Steve: That’s good by me.

Louise: Excellent! See you then.

Explanation / Answer

Critically appraise how well you think Louise conducted the interview with Steve McKay. In your appraisal comment generally on the interview.

Louis conducted a detailed interview to understand the existing operations so that she might understand comprehensively how it worked and how it might be improved with Steve. From the intervies she understood that there are two major areas of operations: sales and stock management, and placing and receiving orders.Shop duties that mainly involve taking orders, sales and returns, and placing orders with the publishers. Lecturers send in Recommended Text Lists (sometimes called a Textbook Master List) to the Bookstore on which they itemize the books that are recommended to students on a particular course, or module as they call it. This usually 4 happens twice a year in July/August and November/December in preparation for the commencement of each semester. However, they may be received at any time.

The Recommended Text List or RTL is checked by the Inventory Assistant for completeness. If any pertinent information is missing the Incomplete RTL is returned to the lecturer in question with an accompanying hand-written note requesting the necessary information. This practice has had complaints from some lecturers because it holds up the ordering of other texts since there is often more than one text being ordered. The Complete or Valid RTLs are then given to the Sales Assistant for further processing. He complete or Valid RTLs are then processed. If the books are in stock then the lecturer is notified. The Inventory File is checked to see if the books are in stock. A Sales Assistant will usually check if the existing stock was previously ordered by the lecturer who is requesting this text. The existing stock in the storeroom is sometimes checked. The Recommended Text List is modified by the Sales Assistant who deletes lines where all the texts required are in stock, or reduces the number to be ordered by the number of texts in stock. Each of the texts to be ordered on the amended Recommended Text List is then checked against the International Academic Editions Website. If the text is not in print the lecturer is informed and if the edition is new or different then the lecturer is informed by email or telephone and the text is either confirmed or cancelled by the lecturer. Especially for high volume texts since the publishers are happy to produce new editions to promote sales, even when there are few changes to the new edition. It drives lecturers daft!

Recommended Text List is now formally 'approved' and it is placed in the Recommended Text List tray that the Accounts Clerk uses to process the placing of orders. Occasionally a lecturer will make an inquiry about a text, and the Sales Assistant will check the International Academic Editions Website or the Inventory File to get information on the text availability, price and edition. The number of texts in stock on the inventory file is sometimes out of synch with the actual number in stock. We get requests from students for specific texts, sometimes for texts ordered by lecturers but not received, and sometimes not. When the text is not in stock students complete a Book Request Form. One Book Request Form is completed for each text a student wishes to order. These can be left in a collection box inside the door of the store. Effectively this form acts as a reservation on a text when it comes in. Their email address is taken and they are usually contacted. Obviously other students will ask if a text has come in and will buy it directly without completing a Book Request Form.

Normally but life’s imperfect! This sometimes creates a problem if we haven’t done so. It is difficult to make sure that as orders come in we set aside all book requests. When we do we insert the Book Request Form inside the cover of the text. When a student purchase is made they receive a Cash Register Sales Receipt. The Inventory staff are generally responsible for identifying books to be returned. There are normally three reasons. If old editions of a text are in stock these are automatically boxed for return when a new edition is received. Second, sometimes books are not selling. A general rule of thumb is if a book has not been sold for three months or if fewer than 10% have been sold in the past three months. Thirdly, sometimes it is obvious that some books of a batch should be returned. For example, of a new batch of say 50 books only 10 have been sold by mid-semester then it is unlikely 6 that all the remaining 40 books will be needed. In such a case the Inventory Manager, Mary Lee, and myself might agree to return 30.

Louise: O.K., what do you do then?

Steve: The Inventory Assistant boxes the books, writes the quantity on what we call an Order Batch Card, sellotapes it to the box and leaves it for the attention of the Accounts Clerk. They take care of the accounting aspect of returns. Tom Duffy in Accounts deals with placement of orders and Mary Lee handles receiving orders into inventory. There are Lecturers complain loudly about the time it takes to respond to requests from lecturers about the status of their order.

Solution- As soon as orders are entered on the system staff can get that information instantly.

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