Sample ITC508 Information Technology Assignment

ITC508 Information Technology Assignment Sample

Assessment 2 - Inception and Elaboration Phase

Value: 25%
Due Date: 04-Apr-2021
Return Date: 27-Apr-2021
Length: 1500 - 2000 words
Group Assessment: No
Submission method options: Alternative submission method

TASK

You are provided with a case study about a business that needs the development of a modern information system to support its day to day operations. In your role as System Analyst, you will help the business in the development of the new information system. Please refer to the Interact2 Resources for the Case study; Read the detailed document and then complete the following task. You will use the same case study to complete assignment 2 and assignment 3.

Inception phase: 10 marks

In the inception phase of the project, your goal is to investigate the scope of proposed business information system in the given case study. To present your understanding of the project, you are required to submit a System Vision Document which includes the following sections

• Project Introduction
• Important system capabilities
• Perceived business benefits
• Resources required
• Stakeholder map

Elaboration phase: 15 Marks

In the elaboration phase of the project, you are required to prepare a report that elaborates the project requirements in detail and illustrate those requirements using UML models. For this purpose, you should attempt the following tasks:

• Identify use cases and draw use case diagram(s) for the new information system that shows major use cases and actors.

• Write one fully developed use case description for one of the important use cases identified. Select an important use case that is a key part of the system, not a basic simple one.

• Draw the UML domain model class diagram(s) for the new information system. Be as specific and accurate as possible, given the information provided. If needed information is not provided, make realistic assumptions.

RATIONALE

This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:

• be able to explain and apply the concepts of object orientation methodology.

• be able to describe the relationship of analysis and design activities to the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

• be able to analyse a case study and construct a business proposal to argue the feasibility of a client software proposal.

• be able to analyse system requirements to determine the use cases for the creation of a domain model of the problem domain.

• be able to create analysis and design diagrams with UML notation.

• be able to model various aspects of systems to construct quality diagrams for use in a system development project.

Case study for assignment help

Vallée de Goût’ is a French cuisine restaurant located in outer suburbs Sydney, offering a luxurious and contemporary fine dining experience. Thanks to maintaining their quality standards, their business has been growing steadily. But for the past few months their venue has been getting overcrowded during weekends.

This has impacted the customer service quality, for example, due to delays in order preparation, mistakes in orders or bills etc. The management firmly believes that an existing customer is worth more to a businessthan a new customer, because the cost to attract a new customer can be multiple times higher than the cost to retain an old customer. A customer is likely to return to a restaurant, if they receive an excellent customer service as well as appetising food. However, the restaurant would easily loose the customers if they have to wait for an unreasonable amount of time or there was a mistake in their order.

To solve these problems, firstly the management has convinced ownersto relocate to a bigger venue nearby. Secondly, the management would like to upgrade to a sophisticated information system at the same time. Their current information system has become a hurdle in smooth business operations because of very limited features. For the past two weeks, the business manager has been evaluating multiple off-the-shelf systems for Vallée. But he came to the conclusion that all of those systems are quite generic; those will require excessive
customization to adapt to some of the Vallée requirements, while lacking some important features. Therefore the restaurant manager have decided to get a custom integrated system developed that better fits their business needs. Your company ‘Hospitality Innovations’ has won the contract Vallée’s software on the basis of extensive experience in developing restaurant related softwares. You and your team have had several meetings with restaurant staff and they have communicated to you their system requirements. You were provided an opportunity to observe day to day restaurant operations, and then interviewed all the potential users of the proposed system (managers, cooks, waiters etc.) in order to get as clear idea of the requirements as possible.

Once you got a clear idea of the system requirements, you propose the new information system to be named iDine. The management liked your name and asked you to describe how the system would work. You wrote a detailed description as below, providing a vision of system working in full capability. Your team will now help Vallée convert this vision into reality. Getting inspiration from touchscreen self-ordering kiosks used by fast food restaurants, Vallée wantsto apply a similar concept (to some extent) in the fine dining. For this purpose, all tables in restaurant are to be equipped with tabletop tablets. These tablets display their detailed digital menu and allow customers to place and send their orders directly to the kitchen. This potentially saves time because customers do not have to wait for a server, especially during lunch or dinner rush hours. Furthermore, while enjoying their meals, customers can use this system to quickly order an extra drink or an additional plate. Plus, since customers can dig deeper into the menu to discover more add-ons and extras than any waiter could recite, orders can be customized as per customer wishes. As an added bonus, some tabletop tablets come loaded with games and entertainment to keep kids busy while their parents are chatting waiting for the order.

Customers who are not tech savvy enough to use those tablets, can just tap the “Call waiter” button to order the old school way. There is main terminal located in the dining room that is overseen by the head waiter. This machine would display a prominent notification of which table is requesting the waiter visit. The head waiter can then direct one of the available waiters to that table to collect the order. The waiter keys-in the order details into the system via a handheld tablet. The table number is also recorded in the system along with the order details. Whichever way an order is placed (customer self-order or through waiter), the system
categorizes the individual items in the order according to the section where they are prepared, and then route the suborders to printers in the appropriate preparation area. For example, to the printer in cold section if ordered item is a salad, to the cafe printer if it is a coffee or sandwich, or to the main kitchen if order is from the main course menu. This ordering system eliminates any problems caused by a waiter’s handwriting. In each
preparation area, the cooks have access to a large touch screen display that shows all orders that are yet to be served. Once an order is ready, a cook will mark the order as ready, which will send a notification to dining room terminal along with the table number. The head waiter then instructs one of the waiters to pick up the order from kitchen and serve to customers.

After the customer have finished with their meal, they can see their final bill on the same tabletop tablet. Alternatively the waiter can print out the bill from the main terminal for any given table number. Other than customer order management, iDine is also composed of several other subsystems like pantry and fresh produce inventory management, and supplies ordering management. Although the inventory system provides a lot of benefits as described later, but it doesimpose a strict data entry requirement. Every item added to inventory must be keyed in to the system. Similarly every item used up from inventory must be recorded. To simplify these tedioustasks, the inventory system is linked together with customer ordering system and
supplies ordering system. A workflow is designed like this: All the supplies are ordered through the supplies ordering system. When those supplies are delivered to the restaurant, a staff member keys- in the details of everything added to inventory. Most of it is same as the supply order, so the information is automatically copied over using the supply order number, but staff can adjust the details if the delivery does not exactly match supplies order.

To keep track of supplies consumption, the iDine estimates how much inventory the restaurant should have on-hand based on the items sold. This is possible because ahead of time when the restaurant menu is designed, the chefs provide a list of ingredients (fresh produce or grocery items) required for every single item on the menu. Therefore, as soon as customer orders are served, the inventory system uses to recipe to record an approximate deduction for every ingredient present in the order. This way the system keepstrack of actual
product counts, and also monitors theoretical inventory levels. The inventory system therefore provides a clear information of stock availability for every asset. Management can view inventory counts any time for greater efficiency and accuracy. Because the system can only estimate stock consumption (based on recipes), real stock counts need to be verified by the staff at the end of the day. A comparison of the estimated vs actual stock counts can alert managers to discrepancies from over-portioning, waste, and theft so that they can be
resolved immediately.

Another benefit of linking inventory management and customer ordering is that when the kitchen runs out of a food item, the cooks will use the kitchen terminal to record an ‘out of stock’ status. This will be helpful for waiters when taking orders. If an item can’t be prepared because one or more of the ingredients are out of stock, the waiters can immediately apologize to customers, enabling them to provide a better customer service. Similarly the customer tabletop tablets will disable ordering of such items, indicating the same reason on the screen.

An automated stock control is done by the inventory system and a report is readily available showing which items are currently available in stock and which of them need to be ordered from suppliers. This greatly reduces the chances of mistakes by staff members and they do not have to remember what is to be ordered. Previously staff had to handwrite a list of all ingredients that were out of stock at the end of every night shift. It was always not that productive as there was a very big possibility on missing out some of the ingredients. Using the automated reports, managers can manually place an order of supplies to be delivered the next day before the restaurant opens. But manually preparing the orders is seldom needed because an even better automated purchasing system works most of the time. Linked directly to the inventory system, this subsystem notifies and alerts the managers about low product levels. This system intelligently suggests purchasing recommendations based on supplies (expected) delivery time, forecasted sales quantities, and predefined stock level thresholds. Managers can also enable automatic orders to placed whenever inventory reaches a certain threshold.

Sales analytics is part and parcel of every modern business and Vallée is no exception. To this end, the new information system provides up-to-the-minute reports on the food items ordered and breaks out percentages showing sales of each item versus total sales. This helps management understand which food items are popular in customers. This data isthen shared with chefs so that can tweak the recipes of unpopular items. In this way, menu is tweaked according to customers’ tastes. The system also compares the weekly sales revenue versus food costs, allowing planning for tighter cost controls. In addition, whenever an order is voided, the reasons for the void are keyed in by waiters. This may help later in management decisions, especially if the voids are consistently related to food or service. iDine is capable of generating different types of charts for sales information so that management can view statistics in numerous diagrams.

Another crucial business requirement fulfilled by iDine is managing customer feedback. This subsystem works in two ways. First, at the restaurant exit door, a special purpose computer is installed that provides five buttons and a small display. The goal of this device is to ask the customers a simple ‘How did we do today?’ question. The five buttons are labelled with emoji faces from ‘sad’ to ‘smiling’. Customers will only need to push one button which is acknowledged with a thank you displayed on screen. iDine collects all such feedback and
presents in the form of charts as needed. In case customers wish to offer a detailed feedback with comments, that option is also available. The bill receipts have a QR-code at the bottom which customer can scan with a smartphone camera. The QR code is unique to each customer, linked to their order information. Scanning it leadsto an online feedback form where user can leave detailed rating and comments. Later when management reviewsthe feedback, they will have access to order details as well so it is easy to understand and act upon customer complaints (if any).

Another convenience Vallée is proud to offer its customers is the real time space availability and wait time estimation. As soon a customer places an order, iDine records their table as busy and that way remaining space available in restaurant can be worked out and displayed on the company website, updated in real time. Similarly, based on the actual order placed, system can provide an estimate of preparation time which is intimated to customers via tabletop tablet or waiter. Furthermore this information is also to estimate how long queuing time is, for those arriving when the restaurant is full. To get a proper estimate of queuing time, iDine keepstrack of the average time customersspend from order to payment (because most customers leave right after payment). When restaurant is full, these average values are used to work out when the next table will get free.

Ever since iDine has been installed at Vallée, it has vastly improved the workers organization and teamwork. Management is happy with the post-sales analysis reports. The system itself is designed with a very user friendly, touch driven GUI. The system response time is incredibly fast; the staff do not come across any noticeable lags or delays when using it. All customer orders are logged in an archive for record keeping and analytics purposes.

Solution

Introduction

The following project is carried out to develop an information system for a restaurant, named as Vallée de Goût’. It is a French cuisine restaurant, located in outer suburb area of Sydney which serves both the contemporary and luxury dining experience. In order to cope with the rising business, the business needs adequate space which can be solved by developing the system management. Due to the long waiting time or getting delayed order, the existing venue gets overcrowded. So, the staffs feel difficulty in handling the loads of the customers. As a result, they serve delayed order and also make mistakes on orders and bills out of pressure. This type of mistake will impact on the reputation on the customer service of the restaurant and they will start losing the customers. Beside the quality food, they also want to improve the customer service by enabling a better information system.

The existing information system management of the restaurant has very generic features which needs to be customized in the new system. It will help the business to involve multiple touchpoints from customers to the staffs which removes the mistakes occur in the manual orders. The customers will be given with a tablet on the top of every table and they can book the orders by themselves from the list of a digital menu. The order will be sent directly to the kitchen and the cook can access it. It will make a clear communication between the customer and the restaurant by avoiding the mistakes of writing made by the waiter. The waiter gets the notification of serving the dishes from the head the supervision of head waiter who oversees the process and makes decision. It will also allow an old school way of order taking through the ‘call waiter’ button. The new system will be named as ‘idine’. Apart from these basic features, it will have several add-on features to engage the customers.

Key System Features

The ‘idine’ will have an automation system with the below listed functionalities:

Customer Service

• The system will have the functionalities of showing the current menu of the day and changing the menu digitally.

• The system will enable the customers to have both the self-ordering and order taking by the waiter.

• The system will enable the customer to change the order and adjust the bill.

• The system will be able to adjust with the changing price of the cuisine every day and also show the new offer as per the entry of the back-end staff (Salen, Gresalfi, Peppler & Santo, 2014).

• The system will have a customer registration which records the name and phone numbers of the customers along with their billing details.

• The system will have cashless online payment system which the accepts the online pay and tips of the waiters via net banking or payment apps.

• The system adds the extra requirement of the customers apart from the digitally saved menus which directly will be sent to the cooks.

• The system will have the feedback options where the customers can rate the service and also give their review.

• The system will ask the customer is their any service or feature they want changes.

• The system will offer many video games which will engage the customers and their kids until the dish is served.

Inventory Management

• The system will be able to provide the real time inventory stock to the kitchen manager as per every order.

• The stock information will be updated with the data entry requirement. Whenever a new order is placed, it shows the available ingredients for the recipe of a booked order.

• The system will automate a report concerning the used goods, leftovers and what needs to be filled up as per the recipe manager (Zhao Guibas, 2004).

• The system will also update the out-of-stock status.
Supplies ordering management

• The system will have a supply ordering management which sends orders to the suppliers by tracking the stock availability and the system automation has the ability to decide which stocks is required or need to be ordered. This reduces the chance of manual mistakes (Cassell & Hiremath, 2018).

• The automation purchasing system will enable the restaurant to buy the products at any point of time. It omits the night shift of the staffs who tracks the required supplies and orders. This automation process enables the restaurant to have the supplies on the next day morning. Also, the lists are free of manual error.
Perceived business benefits

• The idine will avoid the chance of data loss by the digital booking. So, the accuracy in the ordering, billing and inventory management will be perceived (Taylor, 2017).

• It will automate the process and saves the time of customers and the staffs. As a result, there will be no delayed orders or long queue in the booking. By delivering quick service, the restaurant will get rid of the problem of over-crowding.

• it will improve the efficiency of delivery and the overall process. So, the customer will be satisfied and customer retention is ensured.

• It will deliver a better customer service experience through the booking, billing and entertainment. So, customer attraction will be increased.

• The cashless payment system will deliver customer convenience with an assured paying with taxes.

• The finance management of the restaurant will be improved by calculating the total sales, purchase in supply management and leftover in the inventory.

Required Resources

The required resources of idine are:

Project manager

The project manager will select the roles and responsibilities of the team members; also ensure the essential items and tracks the required changes.

Software developer

The software developer will be responsible for writing the codes and develops the programme for idine.

UX designer

The UX designer will be responsible for designing the visual representation of the idine, including the branding of the web page.

UI designer

The UI designer is responsible for designing the functionalities based on the user interfaces and the user applications (Alencar, 2015).

Protype test team

The prototype test team will send the raw product of idine IS system to the test users. Based on their reviews the prototype of idine will be moderated.

Technical writer

The technical writer will write the uses of the idine system based on the description of the test users.

Stakeholder map

Vallée de Goût’ : this stakeholder is the client of this project who will send requirements and give approvals of idine.

Customer service team: the customer service team consists of the waiter, cooks, inventory staffs who are allocated for checking the booking details.

Admins: the admins are the head waiters, inventory manager, supply chain manager and kutchen manager who oversees the overall process in each domain, by the help of idine system and instructs their subordinate.

Customers

Customers are the active participants who uses the booking system in idine and enjoy the amusements.
Suppliers

The suppliers are the stakeholders who sells raw ingredients for the cuisines by the system generated process. They are also paid by this automated system.

Project team

The project team receives the requirements from Vallée de Goût’. They design, develop and deploy the iDine.

Stakeholder Map

Stakeholder Map

Elaboration phase

Use case diagram

Use case description

Domain model class diagram

The diagram has key classes: CUSTOMER, FEEDBACK, BILL, ORDER, ORDER_DETAILS, ITEMS, SUPPLIER, STAFF and REPORT. All the many-to-many relationships have been resolved using associative classes such as ORDER_DETAILS and SUPPLIER_ORDER.

References

Alencar, M. S. (2015). Information theory (Ser. Communications and signal processing collection). Momentum Press.

Cassell, K. A., & Hiremath, U. (2018). Reference and information services : an introduction (Fourth). ALA Neal-Schuman, an imprint of the American Library Association.

Taylor, M. (2017). Information system research : :fundamentals of scientific research for the consumer. Momentum Press.

Tekinbas? Katie Salen, Gresalfi, M., Peppler, K. A., & Santo, R. (2014). Gaming the system : designing with gamestar mechanic (Ser. Interconnections : understanding systems through digital design). MIT Press.

Zhao, F., & Guibas, L. J. (2004). Wireless sensor networks : an information processing approach (Ser. The morgan kaufmann series in networking). Morgan Kaufmann.