ICT310 System Analysis and Design- Software Development Life Cycle
Comfort Quilts Limited is a Sydney based business which at the moment sells imported silk eiderdowns (doonas) such as the ones shown to retail stores, wholesale outlets and through a website. The business purchases home-wares from many sources in China, with delivery through the postal service.
The business was started by the business owner, Alison Williams who undertook all the ordering and selling however the business has now grown to include both part-time and full-time employees. The organisation is also looking to expand further. Currently the business has just completed a project to replace a manual stock control and customer relationship systems with a custom system. They also use an accounting system which is used to manage the accounts receivable and accounts payable of the business. However, Comfort Quilts Limited is now looking to expand their range of goods sold.
Comfort Quilts plan to expand their range of quilts to include other natural materials such as cotton and wool. As part of their strategic planning they are also investigating including bed linens in natural materials such as linen and cotton sheet sets and quilt covers in their range. This expansion in the range of good offered will significantly affect their current purchasing systems.
They currently have online sales for the silk eiderdowns to private people rather than businesses, so this is a straight business to consumer transaction. They also offer a wholesale service for bulk purchases where they organize to have their brand labels sown on the quilts. This is an important part of their business, making up 50% of their sales.
Currently, an off the shelf accounting package is used and email for communication with suppliers and customers plus the new customer relationship management and sales system. There is a recognition that this new system now contains data which would be very useful for supply chain management. For Comfort Quilts the personal relationship they have had with suppliers is very important and they want to maintain this level of trust by sharing some sales data with suppliers.
Currently their suppliers are all in China however they are planning to import from other countries also such as India and Indonesia. They will store name, business number, address, telephone, email, country, currency goods sold in, payment terms. They plan to use a number of customs clearance agents to clear shipments through customs. For goods coming into Australia over the value of $1 000 GST is applied and a duty value ranging from zero to ten percent.
Purchases from suppliers are made in bulk (normally over 500 pieces) and are sent over a number of shipping channels, including couriers like UPS, air freight or shipping dependent on the quantity ordered and the urgency for the order. Sometimes a single purchase might be split between a number of shipping channels, with a smaller quantity being sent by a faster channel like a courier and the rest of the purchase being sent through a cheaper shipping channel. being Each of these shipping methods have a number of different attributes. Comfort Quilts want to be able to associate each purchase with the shipping method and maintain a record of the cost and length of time taken for each shipment. They also need to maintain details of each purchase.
Gary Tallent, would like to know stock levels of each item and how long each shipment of products takes to sell. He would also like to make bigger orders less often to take advantage of smaller shipping costs per piece of silk product and bulk ordering discounts offered by their suppliers.
Business Processes:
A JAD session with key stakeholders revealed the following information. The business processes described below are the system requirements for this information system solution:
- The customer relationship management application and sales application has already been completed therefore do not model any of these systems.
- Before Comfort Quilts Limited can buy from suppliers they must fill in an application. Applications are reviewed by the suppliers and not all applications are approved.
- Gary Tallent, the purchasing manager wants to be able to run reports on individual purchases, individual shipments and purchasing/ shipping reports at the end of the month.
- Alison Williams also wants to run a purchasing report showing details of each purchases, shipping method and the expected date of arrival of shipments on the first of every month.
- Any payments for salaries or expenses to purchases people are outside the scope of this system.
Answer:
This report is in regards to the request the management gave on the research of the best adaptive method the new information system can be implemented with. This report is based on the Extreme Programming adaptive methodology. It is often referred to as XP. It is an adaptive system development methodology that is based on the configuration of the requirements of the customer requirements and trying to figure out the best programming algorithm will cater for the requirements in question.
This report explains in depth the steps involved in the development, implementation, and deployment of the new information system using the Extreme Programming adaptive system development methodology. It covers the advantages that come with the use of XP in the development, implementation, and deployment of the new information system for Comfort Quilts Limited information system. It also states the role players and the distinct roles they play in the development, implementation and deployment of the system.
As the name suggests Extreme Programming is repetitively trying to find an algorithm that incorporates all the requirements set by the customers. The process is incremental and repetitive thus extreme. Extreme Programming is based on finding the best algorithm that best suits the requirements of the new information system for Comfort Quilts Limited. The process of coming up with a system using Extreme Programming entails module release, module and system testing, acceptance testing, programming, iterations and incrementing functionalities. This methodology has five phases in the process of developing, implementing and deploying the new information system for Comfort Quilts Limited.
Roles and role players according to Tabassum et.al (2017).
The manager. This is the overall boss who is the major determinant of the system development failure or success. He or she is responsible for allocating the various resources that are needed during the development process for instance the funding for every module developed.
The coach. This is the phase of the programming team. He or she must have a wide grasp of knowledge on the implementation of XP in the development of the new information system for Comfort Quilts Limited.
The programmer. Asghar et.al (2017) this is the person responsible for the coding part of the new information system. This person transforms the customer requirements provided to him into programming codes that make up a system.
The customer. The customer provides the programmer with the system requirement specification that he or she would like the programmer to implement to the system.
Tester. This is a person responsible for unit testing, acceptance testing and system testing for a system to be considered efficient. The tester finds an algorithm that finds the errors in a system.
Tracer. This is a person responsible for keeping the tracks of progress by the programmers. He or she figures out where the development has reached, what achievements have been made compared to the goals that were set.
IT Consultant. Sedano (2017). This is an expert in a certain field but is not a member of the programming team. This person is only invited to offer a solution to a specific problem that has been difficult for the development team to crack.
Phases. XP has five phases according to Abrahamsson et.al ( 2017)
Exploring phase. This is where the customers, Comfort Quilts Limited, give or specify the requirements that they would like the programming team to implement. Meanwhile, the programming team identifies and familiarize with the tool that are going to be used in the development of the new information system for Comfort Quilts Limited.
First release phase. This is the stage where the programmers give the customers a system that is based on the non-functional requirements. The functional requirements are less and the ones available are to be highlighted by the customer whether to be pursued or not.
Product release phase. This is where the system is checked and tested for errors thoroughly before being released to the customers. In this stage the main functionalities of the information system are addressed.
Maintenance phase. This is done after releasing the product in the product phase. The system is now running but needs correction of some errors for it to be complete. Kropp et.al (2017) it involves adding some little functionality that were left out in the product phase or have just popped up.
Final phase. It is also referred to as the death phase. This is where the system is complete. It has satisfied both the programmers and the customers. There is no more function left out and programming has stopped. The requirement specifications have been all met by the system.
Adaptive mechanism
Extreme Programming is not that fixed to be said to suit a given information system development, implementation and deployment. The programmers work closely with the customers. The programmers get the requirement of the Comfort Quilts Limited and try to figure out the best way to implement them in the system Anwer et.al (2017.)
Scope of use
Extreme is used by a team of programmers that range between a minimum of three programmers to a maximum of twenty programmers. Comfort Quilts Limited should higher programmers to develop, implement, and deploy the new information system.
It should be used where there is no location access barrier. The programming team should be located in one place when developing the system. Balijepally et.al (2017). This is essential because communication between them is essential and needed from time to time during the development process. This means Comfort Quilts Limited has to set aside a room where the programmers will be located. It may be a room where they can all communicate and share the ideas on how to solve a certain problem.
It is not sensitive to programming languages. It is supported by a wide range of tools and platforms. This enables it to be widely used.
Conclusion
Extreme Programming adaptive methodology is the best for the implementation of the new information system for Comfort Quilts Limited because if the following
Due to its adaptive nature and indefiniteness, where programmers strive to find the best algorithm that can implement the requirement specifications of Comfort Quilts Limited, this methodology is able to span and accommodate the implementation of many information systems.
Extreme Programming is still under research. The results of this research might result to better functionalities of the XP agile methodology. These new functionalities may accommodate new technologies that will enable growth of the business in future for Comfort Quilts Limited.
Bibliography
Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J. and Warsta, J., 2017. Agile software development methods: Review and analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.08439.
Balijepally, V., Chaudhry, S. and Nerur, S.P., 2017. Mob Programming–A Promising Innovation in the Agile Toolkit.
Tabassum, A., Bhatti, S.N., Asghar, A.R., Manzoor, I. and Alam, I., 2017. Optimized Quality Model for Agile Development: Extreme Programming (XP) as a Case Scenario. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED COMPUTER SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS, 8(4), pp.392-400.
O'Leary, P., McCaffery, F., Richardson, I. and Thiel, S., 2017. Towards agile product derivation in software product line engineering.
Asghar, A.R., Bhatti, S.N., Tabassum, A. and Shah, S.A.A., 2017. The Impact of Analytical Assessment of Requirements Prioritization Models: An Empirical Study. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications (IJACSA), 8(2).
Anwer, F., Aftab, S., Shah, S.S.M. and Waheed, U., 2017. Comparative Analysis of Two Popular Agile Process Models: Extreme Programming and Scrum. International Journal of Computer Science and Telecommunication, 8(2), pp.1-7.
Sedano, A.T., 2017. Sustainable software development: Evolving extreme programming (Doctoral dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University).
Kropp, M., Anslow, C., Mateescu, M., Burkhard, R., Vischi, D. and Zahn, C., 2017, May. Enhancing Agile Team Collaboration Through the Use of Large Digital Multi-touch Cardwalls. In International Conference on Agile Software Development (pp. 119-134). Springer, Cham.
