Developing an Information Systems Architecture for Acme Engineering - Case Study Example

FEIT31276 Networked Enterprise Architecture Assessment item 2 developing an information systems architecture for acme engineering 00000000 First Name Tutorial n - Tutor’s first name 08/04/2013 INTRODUCTION AND BUSINESS OPERATION Acme Engineering is both a service and product delivery business that aims at solving every problem of the customer. This company business uses a customer approach type of business where the customers seeking services or products from the company are the ones who trigger series of the business events. This means that the business will be conducted in a way such that a customer seeks the services or products of the business and therefore lay down his requirements. The customer is the one who defines what exactly it is that he wants the business organization to provide for him. This way, the customer clearly states his concerns and problems. The step that is taken by the business is to respond to the customer’s requirements and handle them accordingly. This it does by proposing solutions that are relevant to the customer’s requirements and can help satisfy the customer. The response that the business organization provides to the customer is ensured to be of high quality and as well timely. This response is also majorly presented by the salespeople. The rationality of the response provided by the salespeople cannot be achieved without the consultation of a more specialized and superior body (Nickels, Mchugh, J and Mchugh, S, 1999). This therefore implies that before the salesperson can issue a solution as to the customer’s requirements, there has to be a consultation of the design organization. It is the design organization that will be able to produce viable customer requirements’ solution that is adopted and passed on to the customer by the salesperson. This shows that the salesperson will act as the middle person between the organization’s experts and the customer. Business Activity Model showing how the Business Will Be Conducted The entire business process is made up of various components that complete the functionality of the business. These components form part of various business activities and it is these business activities that sums them up. The various business activities have been highlighted below and their components. Customer Request The customer request is what triggers the operation of the business. Its issue is what will commence the long trait of activities that follow once a customer has visited the business. For a customer request, the following components are expected: The Client’s requirements that entail the construction plan This summarizes the requirements of the client and outlines what kind of services he expects to get from the company. Client’s requirements include: i. Electrical and Lighting configurations ii. Special wiring and components iii. Identification of the areas to be lighted and lighting requirement iv. Possible locations of Special Power Distribution Devices like transformers Seeking Advice from the Design Organization This is coordinated by the salesperson. It involves the collection of the customer request and organizing it for forwarding to the Design Organization. This activity is whereby the salesperson, after gathering what the customer requires, prepares it and seeks expert advice from the design organization. The business activity entails the following components: Alternative solutions These are the alternatives of various components of the business Solution requirement The Proposed Customer Solution This is the outcome of the consultation made by the salesperson to the design organization. It is formed after reviewing and putting into consideration the requirements of the client as presented by the salesperson. The start of this activity is triggered by the reception of an advice query from the sales persons. This business activity is made up of the following components: Possible costing Possible design of the lighting Projected duration of installing the design The client’s requirements contain various kinds of information that are crucial to the solving of the client’s problem. These series of information are what will outline the requirement of the customer to the salesperson and eventually the design organization. This implies that its clarity and presentation is important to the successful solution of the presented problems. Putting these into considerations, the relaying of the information of the client’s requirement should be done in a concise way that is even self-explanatory. Therefore, the information should be organized in a dashboard that contains all the requirements as put by the client. The information is provided by the client and should be presented to the salesperson as pre-designed. The delivery of the message to the salesperson should be made possible and done in a way that is convenient for the client. The considered ways of presentation should be able to consider the level of convenience that the method will provide to the client as this will determine the most appropriate way to convey the requirement information. Therefore, the requirement information from the client to the salesperson should be presented in form of direct messages from the client. The client should send the requirement messages directly to the salesperson. This will help reduce the number of mediums through which the information passes before it reaches the salesperson thus maintaining the accuracy and relevance of the client’s information. On the part where the salesperson seeks advice from the design team, timeliness and accuracy should be upheld. The communication should allow for a real time communication such that salespersons should be able to electronically forward customer’s requirements to the design team and in the way get feedback. The proposed customer solution is provided by the design team and should take care of all the requirements of the client. It is a section that forms the core part of the business as it is where the service delivery of the business comes in. This is not merely information but the exact work of the company. Therefore, it can be presented in form of workspace where the company actually does the client’s requested work in a specified period. Communication between the design organization and the client should be maintained well so as to enable satisfaction of the customer. The communication requirement for the different business activities of Acme Engineering should be timely and that which guarantee the accuracy of the relayed information. This means that real-time and fast electronic communication like VoIP telephony should be implemented. COMPONENTS AND DESIGN OF THE SYSTEM Acme engineering business is made up of different activities that are inter-related to each other in one way or the other (Rolland, 1989). According to entity-relationship (E-R) models, the different elements and processes of the business can be translated to different entities which have varying attributes a shown in the entity-(E-R) model below. The customer’s requirement forms the basis for the flow of the business. The customer’s requirements are passed to the Salesperson who evaluates them and forwards them to the design organization. The specific requirements and contents of the customer’s requirements form the different attributes of the requirements. The decision is made by the design organization upon receiving related request from the Salesperson. This therefore implies that the produces decision has attributes as indicated in the diagram. Based on the provided entity relationship, there is a need to develop workspaces and programs so as to ensure that all information is handled appropriately and customer requirements professionally solved. This, in design, implies that a workspace be implemented at the Salesperson’s point. This workspace will enable the reception of the client’s information in form of requirements. The requirements from the client will be handled by the customer in the workspace and evaluated. Upon consideration and evaluation, the information is then forwarded by the salesperson to the design organization. Conversely, at the salesperson’s point, there is also a need to associate the developed workspace with the dissemination of information and services from the design organization to the customer. This is so since it is the salesperson who acts as a middle person between the experts and the clients, implying that the present salesperson’s workspace should also be able to support the relay of services and information from the design team to the actual client. At the design organization, there is a need to develop a workspace for decision making. The design organization receives requirement information from the salesperson concerning the client’s problem and solves it. This means that there need to be a platform for critically analyzing the problems of the client so as to come up with a viable solution as made possible by the workspace. Foe effective and efficient operation of the Acme Engineering business, a program for handling effective, timely and secure transfer of information is established. Information from the client needs to accurately reach the salesperson that will also need to contact the design organization. This implies that communication between the salesperson and the design organization needs to be very accurate and reliable so as to avoid paralyzing the business operation in case of failures. It is also important to note that efficient and timely operation of the business relies on the timeliness and reliability of the communication channel between the available different entities. The Overall Design In the information Systems Architecture, all components incorporated are related to each other and connected to provide a system that completely solves the client’s requirements problems. This defines the completeness of the information system and its effectiveness in providing customer solutions. The relationships between all components in the information systems architecture is as shown in the diagram below. Logical Diagram Showing the Relationships between all Components in the Information Systems Architecture The relationship between client, salesperson and the design organization is achieved by an efficient communication channel and hierarchical relationship whereas each of them has distinct attributes. This implies that while the customer issues requirements to the salesperson, the salesperson may seek advice and import services from the design team. EFFECTIVENESS AND RELIABILITY OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEM Discussion on the Efficiency of the Information System The developed information system is designed in a dynamic way that allows for constant change of information input in it. The information system’s platform is interactive and allows for user interaction with the system in a way that allows for access and retrieval of data and information in a convenient way. This design is achieved through the design of the system using structured programming and modular approach which divides components of the system into related subsystems. These subsystems are dependent on each other and perform distinct functionalities. The subsystems, being that they perform different functions, incorporate all the functions and branches of the Acme Engineering business. This means that collective functions of different subsystems are brought together to make a complete system which is interactive and dynamic. The designed information system is also designed to enable efficient operation of Acme engineering by providing a system interface which allows the available experts to reorganize themselves and swiftly reorganize the available solutions. In order for the customer problems to be handled fast, there is a need to make the information function in a way that enables reorganization of newly identified solutions and this is achieved by the system The information system that is designed is not fixed. The components relate to each other in a dynamic and flexible way in that a change in one element or attribute leads to the change of the other. This means that the information processing is dependent on other attributes (Lucas, 1975). Conversely, this provides a system which allows a fast change of the course of process with the change of an attribute, provided the attribute contributes to the solving of client’s problems. Such a system is a kind of system that maintains data integrity as well as information security. CONCLUSION The information system that has been designed has achieved the expected results and manages the operation of Acme engineering efficiently. Timeliness and accuracy of information has been achieved through the communication medium by the enhanced communication methods. This is so in that unlike the past where information was only passed through messages and emails, the new information system has realized the creation of a remote data handling system. The remote technique is made possible by the installation and adaptation of cloud computing in Acme engineering Cloud computing has centralized the data storage and made it possible in the system for experts and salesperson to access information real-time from a central database. This eliminated the delay time wasted in passing information. On handling of the client’s requirements, proper solutions are obtained in that the salesperson identifies the best expert for the particular task and uses his expertise. The chosen lead expert also chooses the most appropriate team to handle the customer request. This is ensured through effective communication and data availability. This system is an entity that depends on collective results from different persons or rather entities. Information must be timely conveyed and data security ensured for it to be reliable (Clifton and Sutcliffe, 1994) REFERENCES Lucas, Henry C., 1975, Performance and the Use of an Information System, Management Science, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 908-918. Nickels, William, Mchugh James, and Mchugh, Susan, 1999, Understanding Business. Boston: Irwin McGraw- Hill. Rolland, F.D., 1989, Relational Database Management with Oracle. Mass: Addison-Wesley Publishing. Clifton, H.D & Sutcliffe, A.G, 1994, Business Information Systems, – 5th edition. Read More