Helen`s Trading Card Company - Case Study Example

HELEN'S TRADING CARD COMPANY CASE STUDY Introduction An effectual Information System is considered necessary for business today, be it large scale enterprises or small scale businesses. An information system, as the name suggests, helps to manage all the information a business has about its stakeholders and itself. The question is what really is an Information System Why is it necessary What will it achieve What stages of a Systems Development Methodology are involved in designing it Answers to such and other questions, in the context of Helen's Trading Card Company, will be discussed in this paper. We will examine the role that a Systems Development Methodology and its associated System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) will play in designing an information system for Helen's company. Discussion Background To have insight into the background, I will portray it briefly. Helen started off her company when an online trading card company asked her to buy and sell its cards for it. Initially, we can say that it was very small scale because before that, she would only buy trading cards for her son. Soon afterwards, she started her own company and became an authorized trader. This meant that now she now had more information to manage and use. Her company must have been small because trading cards is not a large-scale business as it is. But she still had information to manage hence she needed a system that would help her deal with all this information about her stakeholders. This, indeed, would be an Information System. Requirements Helen has a few requirements for which she needs an information system. According to these requirements, a Systems Development Methodology and its associated model, the JAD model, in our case will be used to develop this information system. Helen needs a system that will enable her to store details about the individual trading cards which she has for sale, as well as packs of structure decks, and games mats, etc. She needs a system that will store information about her received orders. She also needs to keep information about her suppliers; be it any company or person which Helen buys products from. Helen wants to store information about what she has bought, who she bought it from and how much she paid for it. Finally, she needs a record of all her customers so she can inform them about any upcoming events and offers that might be of interest to them. Why are we discussing her requirements It is important to understand these requirements as the first step towards developing a system, using any model of the Systems Development Methodology. If we fail to understand the requirements, we will certainly fail to provide her what she wants and then no matter, what model or methodology is used, the system will fail (Pressman, R.S., 2005). Information System - What is it An Information System is a framework or a structure of any sort that would enable and facilitate Helen to process her data and manage her information. There are many different kinds of systems that keep changing as technology grows (Betts, G., 2007). She has so much information about the companies that she buys from, the customers that she sells to, the orders that she receives and the products that she makes. It will much simpler for us if we break down all these requirements and view them in isolation. First of all, Helen needs to deal with the information regarding her suppliers. A supplier could be any company or person which Helen purchases cards from. Helen wants to store information about what she has bought, who she bought it from and how much she paid for it. According to most analysts, her requirements fit perfectly with a Supply Chain Management System. She will be able to handle her suppliers effectively with this. But if she is handling only her suppliers, where does her customer and order management fit For this, she could invest in a Customer Relationship Management System. This way she can understand her customers, give them value and retain profitable ones. Those who are not profitable can be studied further to make them profitable. But the problem is that a Customer Relationship Management framework will be very costly and at the same time, much expertise will be needed by her and her employees to deal with it. Secondly, she will now have two systems to control; supply chain management and customer relationship management. Information and sytem analysts will believe that after considering all the negative arguments against managing two systems she has the option of integrating these systems and for once and for all, employ an Enterprise Resource Planning system. This system is cross-functional; it amalgamates all the functions of an enterprise. ERP is said to be an integrated information system. This means that it integrates other information systems such as CRM and SCM into one. Other than all these elements of the e-business suite, she also has the option of using a Transaction Processing System. A transaction is anything that a business does. For example, Helen buying from suppliers is a transaction as well as Helen employing a new employee. Under the TPS, Helen's transactions may have multiple states before it is finished. At each stage in its lifecycle it may make measurements such as financial ones that may be used by the stakeholders of the business to control it (Reich, S., 1997). Helen could also make use of the measurements that her TPS will generate to make decisions about which customers to retain. Others, for Helen's purpose, will say that she could just simply manage a good Database Management System (DBMS) to store all her information about her suppliers under the SUPPLIERS record of her database. Similarly, she could have many other records in her database such as CUSTOMERS, EMPLOYEES, ORDERS, PRODUCT. This will store all her information. She could retrieve it as she pleases and when she pleases. She can update her information according to the transaction she makes everyday. She could use this information about customers and orders to make decisions about what customers to sell special offers to and to determine what kind of value must be given to what kind of customer. Helen's other requirements include storing and handling information about her suppliers. This will already be present in the database and she could use the database management system to update this information as required. All her product details will also be stored in the database and will help her to manage them effectually. A DBMS is also great for managing and supporting transactions. It interleaves the actions of different transactions (Ramakrishnan, R., Gehrke, J., 2002). The question is whether a DBMS is an information system or not It's most basic functions deal with handling data, not information. It is a data storage, retrieval and updating facility. It does not deal with information specifically. I would say it is because a good database management system shows relationships and once these relationships are shown by a database, the data in it become information because it starts making sense to us and becomes meaningful and useful for the user. Therefore we will conclude that a DBMS is an information system. Systems Development Methodology and the SDLC It is important for developers to deliver the product on time and in budget. Earlier methodologies emphasized control and training to improve the Information System development (Signell, K.L., et al, 2002). Systems Development Methodology comprises of several steps or processes required for effective project management. In this case, our project is to develop a database management system that fits perfectly well with Helen's requirements. A Systems Development Methodologu will guide the designers in developing this information system by giving them a set of steps they can follow. A Systems Development Methodology has an SDLC. An SDLC is a Systems Development Life Cycle. It is used when there in a need for managing data and processing it. It creates a set of formal methodologies centered around the SLDC itself (Tayntor, C.B., 2002). Many models or methodologies have been developed under this. Some of them are the waterfall model, the spiral model, RAD, JAD, synchronize-and-stabilize. All these models have their own functionalities and define in their own way how to develop any system. Sometimes, even a combination of different models in used in system development. This is hybrid methodology. In our case, we will use the JAD model. JAD stands for Joint Application Model. Its name suggests its definition. Its emphasis is on the designers and the client working together in collaboration to develop a system. The client will be involved in the application development process through collaborative workshops. The advantage of this, clearly, is that the system will be in perfect accordance with the needs of the client. In our context, Helen will get exactly what she requires. Thus, nothing will be missed out unless Helen wishes it to. Some models work better for some types of projects, but as an analytical remark, it is most important for a successful system development to follow a particular plan closely. We will use JAD and not the other models because we want Helen's Database system to be free from any errors and we need it to be of good quality. Also Joint Application Development (JAD) is a development methodology system mostly used for designing a computer-based system. A JAD methodology will endure that the database system looks exactly as it is required by Helen. Also, because the system is fairly small and simple, JAD will be a great option. The designers along with Helen can work on it slowly, take their time and create an error-free and good quality system, that has greater satisfaction for her. JAD is the opposite of a RAD model. RAD is Rapid Application Development. This will be not used by us because it emphasized on quick development a system and it lack communication. We do not need to develop this system extremely quickly because it is not even one of Helen's requirements. We will need communication so nothing goes wrong, therefore, the RAD methodology might work as good as the JAD model. We will not use other such as spiral because it is ideal for large and complicated systems or we will not be using the waterfall because it is very static and traditional and requires the customer to wait till the end to be able to see the final product. The client is involved in such traditional models only in the beginning when a series of client interviews are conducted. For all these reasons, it will be ideal for us to make use of the Joint Application Development methodology. All the stages involved in this methodology are explained in the following section. The stages of the Life Cycle of this model will be discussed in great detail for a better understanding of what will be done under each stage of the JAD model to create a fairly simple database for Helen's company. Stages of a Systems Development Life Cycle There are many stages involved in developing any system. One stage has to be completed before we can move on to the next one. Any traditional SDLC will have similar stages. These are illustrated in a diagram below. The rationale for including this is to give the readers a general idea of how any software is traditionally and generally developed. It is important to know that documentation is essential in spite of the model chosen or devised for any system. In general, an SDLC methodology adheres to the following steps (Search Software Quality, 2008). The diagram is more definitive. It is broadened in the shape of the following steps: 1. The existing system is evaluated. If there are any shortages in the system, they are determined. These can be determined by asking the users about the system. 2. For the development of a new system, it is important to define the requirements. If there are any deficiencies known from prior experience, these should be especially considered for the newly proposed system. 3. Once the requirements are elicited and understood, the new system is designed. Its plans about physical construction and other requirements like hardware, operating systems, programming languages and techniques, communications, and security issues are made. 4. After planning the design of the system, this design starts to develop and so does the new system. Procurement and installation of new components and programs are significant in this stage. The users of the system are given training about the system and its uses. 5. Finally all the aspects of performance of this system must be tested for any errors and quality assurance. If it is required, amendments to the system must be made at this stage. 6. The system is put into use by the client. It is installed on his console and used by the end users. 7. After the system is put into use, the most logical thing to do is to evaluate it. It must be maintained thoroughly after it has been put to use. The end users of the system should be informed about any changes made to the system or the procedures. The stages of the SDLC are essentially the same but could be put into other words by some people. Also, some of the stages are combined by some people. However, it is important to know that they all convey the same message and pattern for developing applications. All the stages mentioned above can be labeled for the better comprehension. But we would like to keep our explanation broad, for this purpose, the stages have been explained as points and not headings. We will now discuss all the given points one by one in the context of Helen's Trading Company and her database management system. The first stage requires the old system to be evaluated for any deficiencies that it might have. This stage is invalid for Helen because she doesn't have an existing system. We will make this assumption that she needs a system to manage her information for the first time. The second stage involves the development of the new system. For our purpose and because of our first assumption this is the first stage but to keep the flow going, we will go with the numbers identified in the points above. So the development of Helen's Database Management System (DBMS) would include eliciting her requirements. This will be done through a series of interviews. First, Helen will be asked simple, basic questions after which more technical ones will be asked from her. These requirements will be understood by the software/system team. When we go on to the next stage, we assume that the only requirements of Helen are the ones presented to us in the case. Once the functional, system and non-functional requirements are understood, the Database Management System will be designed. Its plans about its physical construction will be laid down. Helen's Database will be a Relational Database. A relational database is seen by the user as a collection of tables. These tables are technically known as 'Relations' (Pratt, J.P.. Adamski, J.J, 1994). It will have four tables or Relations (as per the System requirements); PRODUCT, ORDERS, CUSTOMERS and SUPPLIERS. The PRODUCT record will have attributes such as ProductID, ProductType (whether it is an individual card or structure decks, games or mats, etc), ProductPrice and ProductQty. All these will store relevant details about the product that can be used by Helen. For the ORDERS table, attributes or fields such as OrderID, OrderType, OrderDate, CustomerID, SupplierID, Payment will be included. This way she can know when the order was received and who gave it. She can send the receipt to the associated customers. One payment can have only one payment so a Relational Database will be ideal to promote and ensure this activity. For any table to qualify as a relation, the entries in the table must be single-valued. Therefore, no order can have more than one payment. The CUSTOMER relation will have fields like CustomerID, CustomerName, CustomerAddress, CustomerPhone, CustomerInterests, OrderID, No_ofOrder and any other attributes about the customer that will enable Helen to understand them better. Helen might want to understand them better so she can provide them with offers before they ask them for it. This is creating value for the customer and in this way, they will be retained by Helen's company. Finally, the SUPPLIERS record will have all the attributes associated with Helen's Suppliers such as SupplierID, SupplierName, SupplierType (individuals or company), OrderID and others. This illustrates the structure of the Database. Security issues will be addressed by properly encoding the information contained in the database. Also, user-defined procedures will be enabled in the database so that users can access the data themselves according to what they require, Sub-schemas or views will be different for each user of the database according to their status and work in the organization. For example, Helen will have access to the entire database but her Product and Marketing manager will have access to only the Product and Customer records. The programming language used will be of an Object oriented nature for a more realistic approach. The database will hence be programmed in C# (C Sharp). It will work on all versions of Linux and Windows (after Windows 1995). After the system has been designed, new components and programs necessary for the effective working of the database will be installed on a console where it can be tested. During this stage, the users of the database will be given training on how to use the different records and how to store, retrieve, and update data. They will be explained the concept of sub-schemas and why they can see only relevant information and not all of it. Finally, Helen's DBMS will be tested for its performance. By this stage, the system, user and system documentation, and training materials are already built; test plans and scripts are already finalized. In this phase, the system and documentation are fully tested (Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2008). Corrections are made as required, and the Quality Assurance (QA) Test system is built and tested. If it takes time to retrieve data or to update the data, changes will be made to its program to rid Helen and other users of this problem. This will be a problem because retrieval and updating data are one of the basic functions of a database and if these are slow, then the performance of the DBMS is not optimal. Now the system will put to use. It will be up and running on all the PCs that will access the database. It will be used by the end users. Finally, in the last stage, the users will evaluate the database. They will see if it meets their requirements in the right fashion. They will also thoroughly maintain it to gain more benefit from it. Conclusion All the activities mentioned above in the designing of Helen's Database Management System, capture information. They tell the developers how to go about designing the product according to Helen's requirements. The DBMS will be great as a customer ordering system because it will enable Helen to see the relationship between customers and orders. This will show which customer has ordered what product. This says a lot about the customer. These relationships will help the users to makes sense out of the data inputted about customers and their orders. This will then become information and hence, meaningful and useful for the users. At the same the users can maintain data about suppliers and products. Relationships between these will be shown by the DBS also. Therefore, it will be very easy to see which supplier has supplied the most number of products and if there were any shortages or not. A dynamic system has a number of interdependent subsystems. If a subsystem fails, this fact can affect the dynamics of the subsystems and the survival of the main system. Static systems are more interpersonal systems instead of technology systems. A dynamic system can become static or unstable and destructive (Evolutionary Ethics, 2007). The system will be very dynamic because it will continually change and update with time and with the amount of transactions carried out in the organization, also because it will be made of many smaller subsystems such as the tables. If one table crashes, it will be impossible to see relationships and hence the entire DBMS will be affected. With all these benefits and functions provided by the DBMS, it will be very easy for Helen's Trading Cards Company to manage its information about customers and orders, and suppliers and products. References Betts, G., Five Types of Information System (2007) Betts Computers [Internet]. Available from: http://www.bettscomputers.com/fivetypesofinformationsystems.htm [Accessed 2 Sept. 2008] Pratt, P.J. & Adamski, J.J., (1994) Database Management Systems and Design 3rd Edition. International Thompson Publishing Company. Pressman, R.S., (2005). Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach. McGraw Hill. Reich, S. (1997). Characterization of a Business Transaction Processing System [Internet]. Available from: http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/johnson/business-transactions/sreich.html [Accessed 2 Sept. 2008] Ramakrishnan, R., Gehrke, J. (2002) Database Management Systems. McGraw-Hill Professional. System Development Methodology; Construction and Quality Assurance Phase (2008) Memorial University of Newfoundland [Internet]. Available from: http://www.mun.ca/cc/systemdevelopment/index.phpcontent=content/construction_phase.html [Accessed 2 Sept. 2008] Static and Stable Dynamic Systems (2007) Evolutionary Ethics [Internet]. Available from: http://www.evolutionaryethics.com/systems.htm [Accessed 2 Sept. 2008] Signell, K.L. (2002). Information Systems Development. Springer. Tayntor, C.B. (2002). Six Sigma Software Development. CRC Press. What is Systems Development Life Cycle (2008) Search Software Quality [Internet]. Available from: http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid92_gci755068,00.html [Accessed 31 Aug 2008] Read More