Video rental system

1.0 Preliminary Investigation

1.1 Case Study

The project we investigated is a video rental system. That is EZzy Video which is a chain of 14 video stores scattered throughout a major metropolitan area. The chain started with a single store several years ago and has grown to its present size. The owner of the chain Eddie Stone, knows that to complete with the national chains will require a state-of-the-art movie rental system.

Each store has a stock of movie and video games for rent. It is important to keep track of each movie title to know and to identify its category (classical, drama, comedy and so on), its rental type (new release, standard), movie rating, and other general information such as movie produces, release date, cost, and so forth. In addition to tracking each title, the business must track each individual copy to note its purchase date, its condition and its rental status. User function must be provided to maintain this inventory information

Customers, the lifeblood of the business, are also tracked. EZzy Videos considers each family to be a customer, so special mailings and promotions are offered to each household. For any given customer, several people may be authorized to rent videos and games. The primary contact for each customer can also establish rental parameters for other members of the household. For example, if a parent wants to limit a child’s rental authorization to only PG and PG-13 movies, the system will track that.

Each time a movie is rented, the system must keep track of which copies of which movie and games are rented; the rental date and time and the return date and time and the household and person renting the movie. Each rental is considered to be open, until all of the movie and games have been returned. Customers pay for rentals when checking out videos at the store.

1.1 Mission Statement

Based on the case study, EZzy Video which is a chain of 14 video stores scattered throughout a major metropolitan area. The owner of the chain Eddie Stone, knows that to complete with the national chains will require a state-of-the-art movie rental system.

1.2 Project Objectives (Current)

The EZzy video are established to give customers a lovely rental service with more variety on movie selection. With this in mind, Eddie Stone established The EZzy with a goal to make customers have a more convenient and comfortable environment to rent their movies. Eddie Stone also hope that we can complete his state-of-the-art movie rental system.

By implementing our system, EZzy will have a competitive advantage over other video stores in the area and a greater overall productivity in terms of sales. In the long run, this project will strengthen the asset turnover in the video store and help the video store to make more profit.

1.3 Project Goals (Current)

EZzy video also be the top compare with other video rental shop. They have many higher requirements , goals and vision which are :

Developing a newer system better than current system.
Enlarge the marketing of video rental to other state or city.
Manage to build up a friendly environment to customers.
The number of members increase to 20 % in 2010.
Most of people choose video rental as their entertainment so that they can earned more benefit and more famous.

1.3 Project Objectives (Proposed)

The primary objective of this project is to address the common problems which a video rental system operate in the rental shop. Our proposed video rental system are :

To enable the manager to make rapid decision by show chart and graph in the system
Ensuring all the rental system is in the REAL-TIME performance and always on track and optimal the utilization of resources.
Use the previous rental system to assist in resource allocation or estimation for current and future project.

The academic objective are as follows:

To create a movie rental store whose goal it is to exceed customers’ expectations.
To develop an alternative to the traditional franchise movie rental store.
To increase the number of clients by 20% per year through superior selection and customer service.

1.4 Project Goals (Proposed)

Based on the objectives above, our goals targeted to increase the chain of the video rental shop. Moreover , we decided to promote our video rental system to other country, such as China , Indonesia , Japan , Korea and Hong Kong. At the future in 2014 , we predict that we can :

Develop a nicer system better than other video rental system.
Most of video rental shop or store are using our video rental system.
The amount of categories of different movies and drama will increase year by year.
Increase 10 % of revenue cost to enhance the video rental shop.

2.0 System Development Methodologies

Prototyping

Prototyping is the process of building a model of a system. In terms of an information system, prototypes are employed to help system designers build an information system that intuitive and easy to manipulate for end users. Prototyping is an iterative process that is part of the analysis phase of the systems development life cycle.

During the requirements determination portion of the systems analysis phase, system analysts gather information about the organization’s current procedures and business processes related the proposed information system. In addition, they study the current information system, if there is one, and conduct user interviews and collect documentation. This helps the analysts develop an initial set of system requirements.

Prototyping can augment this process because it converts these basic, yet sometimes intangible, specifications into a tangible but limited working model of the desired information system. The user feedback gained from developing a physical system that the users can touch and see facilitates an evaluative response that the analyst can employ to modify existing requirements as well as developing new ones.

JAD

Joint Application Design (JAD) was developed by Chuck Morris of IBM Raleigh and Tony Crawford of IBM Toronto in the late 1970’s. In 1980 Crawford and Morris taught JAD in Toronto and Crawford led several workshops to prove the concept. The results were encouraging and JAD became a well accepted approach in many companies.

In time, JAD developed and gained general approval in the data processing industry. Crawford defines JAD as an interactive systems design concept involving discussion groups in a workshop setting. Originally, JAD was designed to bring system developers and users of varying backgrounds and opinions together in a productive and creative environment. The meetings were a way of obtaining quality requirements and specifications. The structured approach provides a good alternative to traditional serial interviews by system analysts.

A successful JAD session should provide these benefits:

ü Reduced system development time. In JAD, information can be obtained and validated in a shorter time frame by involving all participants (or at least a representative set of participants) who have a stake in the outcome of the session. JAD eliminates process delays and has been shown to reduce application development time between 20% to 50%.

ü Improved system quality and productivity. Much of the system’s quality depends on the requirements gathered. JAD involves users in the development life cycle, lets users define their requirements, thus ensures that the system developed satisfies the actual activities of the business. JAD is quoted the best method for collecting requirements from the users, customers, or customer advocates.

RAD

RAD, is a team based technique that speed up information systems development and produces a functioning information system.

RAD is very relying on prototyping and user involvement allow users to examine a working model as early as possible.

If the user wanted to change, the prototype is modified and the interactive process will continues to develop until the users are satisfied and fully developed the system.

RAD – 4 activities:

Requirements planning is a combination of system planning and systems analysis phases of the SDLC. Users, Manager from every department from the company and IT personnel will gathering together to discuss on the business needs, project objective, constraints and system requirement.

User Design – User interact with systems analysts and develop models and prototype that represent all system processes, output and inputs. In this phase, JAD techniques and CASE tools will be use.

Construction – is more on program and application development tasks similar to the SDLC. However user will continue to contribute to the system and suggest changes or improvement as actual screens.

Cutover – Testing, conversion, Changeover to the new system and user training. As a result, the operation take place in a more smooth environment.

Advantages : Fast and Cost effective.

Disadvantages: Don’t not emphasize the company strategic business needs. ( system might work well in short-term, but for long-term objective for the system might not met)

SSADM

SSADM is a procedural and documentation standards methodology for system development. This kind of method is systematic approach to the analysis and design of Information Technology (IT) applications that is commonly used in the UK (Ashworth, 1993).

The methodology adopts the SDLC phases. The steps in SSADM are similar with SDLC, but it does not attempt to cover information strategy planning or construction, testing and implementation of the eventual system (Ashworth, 1993). In developing a system using this methodology, user – analyst interaction is possible because according to this method, the system is belong to the user, hence their participation in the development process is essential.

SSADM consists of 5 main modules:

Feasibility Study
Requirement Analysis
Requirement Specification
Logical System Specification
Physical Design

Advantages of SSADM

SSADM is less complicated to do then SDLC
The chance that the result will satisfy the user is high, since user – analyst interaction is possible.
SSADM is faster, consume less effort and money compared to SDLC

Disadvantages of SSADM

It does not have good documentation for each step.
For large system, errors and bugs are harder to be found since testing is not covered in SSADM.

Methodologies Chosen :SSADM

From the project overview above, we conclude that the system will be a small system that can be applied in a video rental shop. We are going to need a methodology that can save time and money in developing the system. From the four different methodologies possible, our group chose SSADM (Structured System Analysis and Design Methodology) as our methodology.

SSADM methodology is an effective and structured way in developing a system. It is a fast, well structured methodology that will give satisfaction to its users. Our group concludes that this methodology is sort of in between of SDLC and RAD. It adopt some of SDLC phases to ensure good structure and documentation and also optimize the SDLC phases hence it can be faster and more reliable just as in RAD.

It is a fast methodology that doesn’t need lots of resources, time, and money. This methodology suitable for a small to medium project, that doesn’t have long time and money to produce a reasonably good system. Looking back to the project overview in the beginning of this chapter, we can see that this EZzy Video requires a small system that can cope with rental problem. Our group considers that this system doesn’t require high budget and long time period to finish, that is also one of our reason chose SSDAM as methodology used.

2.1 Problem Description

This project will aim to solve the information-handling problems of EZzy Video , a video rental service based in state-of-the-art.

EZzy rents videos out to customers who have completed an application form and become members. EZzy currently has 250 members and a collection of 200 videos.

To do this work and provide these services , information is collected and stored about videos and members. Information about each video is written down on a card that is kept inside its case. Information about each member is written down on a card. These cards are stored in card index box in ascending order of member number. Information about videos on loan is written down in a loans list each day.

When a customer wants to rent a video they take the empty case from the shelf and hand it in at the counter. The shop assistant takes the video number from the details card inside its case and asks the customer for their membership number. If the member does’t know their membership number the assistant looks it up in the members card index box. The membership number and video number are written down on the loans list for that day.

The shop assistant asks how many days the customer wants to rent the video for and writes this on the loans list for the day along with the date that the video will be due back. The shop assistant puts the videocassette inside the case and hands it to the customer. When a video is returned the assistant searches through the loans list for the day it was rented out and crosses out the entry. The videocassette is put away behind the counter and the empty case is placed back on the shelf.

At the end of every day the loans lists are searched to see if any videos haven’t been returned. Overdue reminder letters are completed by hand and posted to any members who have overdue videos.

When a new member joins they are asked to fill in two member details cards. The shop assistant writes the membership number on both cards. One card is given back to the member – this is their membership card. The other card is put in the member details card index box.

When a new video is bought, a video details card is completed and put inside the case. The videocassette is put behind the counter and the empty case is placed on the shelves. When a member leaves they are asked to hand in their membership card and it is destroyed along with their card from the member details box. When a video is sold or thrown away because it is no longer popular or has worn out, the video details card is taken out of the case and destroyed.

The current system causes the following problems:

Lose Membership cards

Members sometimes lose their membership cards or forget to bring them. When this happens their details have to be looked up by searching through the members card index box for the card with their details on it. This can be very time-consuming and often causes long queues in the shop.

Details cards

The video details cards often go missing from the cases and new ones have to be written out. The details cards should be added every month for a preparation. Different members of staff complete the video details cards and loans lists. It is difficult to read other people’s handwriting , which often leads to mistake. Member details cards are sometimes put in the wrong place in the members card index box and it takes time to find them when the member’s details need to be looked up.

Hard to search problem

If a particular video is not in the right place on the shelves it is difficult to tell if it is out on loan without searching the shelves and looking through the loans lists. Staff find it hard to keep up-to-date their knowledge of all the different videos that are available for rental. This makes it difficult to answer customers when they enquire about certain titles or types of video.

Reminder system

It take s a long time to look through the loans lists to find out which videos are overdue and write out reminder letters. Without the reminder system , there are very difficult to find out the people who was return their rented videos lately or overtime. Basically, their penalty price is one days RM 1.00, although this amount is not so large, but it also make shop staff feel scared because they have many past case that some people are lose their videos after they rented.

2.2 Solution on current system

Eddie Stone could solve their information-handling problems by using a filling cabinet to store all their information about videos and members instead of using member and video details cards. The main advantage of this solution is that more information can be stored in a filing cabinet. The disadvantage of this solution is that more information can be stored in a filling cabinet. The disadvantage of this solution is that information would still based on paper records. These could easily be damaged, misplaced or lost just like the existing member and video details cards. It would also take just as much time to search through the filling cabinet to find information as it would to search through member or video details cards.

Another way of solving the problems would be to use a computer to store information about videos, members and loans. The advantages of this solution are that computers can store large amounts of data in a small space and search through it very quickly. That computers can cost a lot of money and some of the EZzy staff might not know how to use one. Some of them might find this very frightening and stressful.

There are two ways that a computer could be used. The first is to write a computer program to solve all of EZzy’s information-handling problems. It can also be very expensive and time-consuming to write a computer program.

3.0 Feasibility Studies I (Current)

Feasibility Study represents a definition of a problem or opportunity to be studied, an analysis of the current mode of operation, a definition of requirements, an evaluation of alternatives, and an agreed upon course of action. As such, the activities for preparing a Feasibility Study are generic in nature and can be applied to any type of project, be it for systems and software development making an acquisition, or any other project.

4.1 Technical Feasibility

4.2 Operational Feasibility

4.3 Schedule Feasibility

The schedule feasibility study analyses on whether the project deadline is completed on time. As the project is initiated by APIIT & UCTI University , the university had set both the duration and deadline of the project deadline falls on 19 October 2009. Therefore , the project schedule is quite feasible to complete the entire project development. In addition , Gantt chart will be provided to indicate the detailed schedule of the project.

Our schedule feasibility consists of:

Workload Matrix
Work Breakdown
Gantt Chart (refer to appendices)
Agreed Work Percentage

4.4 Economic Feasibility

Economic Feasibility is to ensure that the implemented system returns back estimated amount of benefits within a certain period of time. This involves the feasibility of the proposed project to generate economic benefits. A benefit-cost analysis and a breakeven analysis are important aspects of evaluating the economic feasibility of new industrial projects. The tangible and intangible aspects of a project should be translated into economic terms to facilitate a consistent basis for evaluation. (W. Allen)

4.4.1 Cost Classifications

4.4.2 Benefit Classifications

4.5 Payback Analysis

Year Costs Cumulative Cost
Year 0
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6

4.6 Return On Investment Analysis

Lifetime ROI= Total Benefit-Total CostTotal Cost

5.0 Investigation Technique

5. 1 Fact-Findings

5.2 Interview Questions

For this method we have employed various people to go around and interview people of various race, age and gender background. The purpose of interview is to identify and understand the tendency to use our services and categories of videos preferred by interviewee. The questions asked are as below:

1. What information do you store ?

We store information about members , videos and videos that are on loan.

2. How and where do you store information?

Information about members is stored on cards which are kept in a card index box. Each member has his or her own card. Information about each video is stored on a card, which is kept inside its case. Information about videos on loan is written down in a list.

3. What happens when you get new videos?

A new video details card is written out and put inside its case. The information on these cards is changed if the video details change or it is thrown away or sold.

4. What happens when new members join?

Cards are added when a new member joins. We give the new member two blank member details cards to complete. We keep one and the other becomes their membership card.

5. What happens when someone rents a video?

The video cases are stored on the shelves at the back of the shop. There are no videos in the cases- we keep these behind the counter arranged in order of video number. Customers look through the shelves to find the videos they want to rent and take to cases to the counter.

6. How much does it cost to rent a video?

We charge RM 1.00 per day for every DVDs. Members can rent videos for up to one weeks.

7. What happens when someone returns a video?

When a video is returned the details in the loan list are deleted. If they are late returned the video rented, we will make little penalty as RM 0.50 per days.

8. How do you deal with overdue videos?

We look through the loans list at the end of every day to see if any videos are overdue and write out a list of members with overdue videos. The list is used to prepare reminder letters ,which are posted to the members with overdue videos.

5.3 Questionnaires and surveys

This questionnaire will help us find out what you think about the service currently offered by EZzy and try to improve it. Your opinions are very important to us. As a thank you for completing this form we will give you one night’s free rental of any new release.

5.0 Data Flow Diagrams

DFD is a diagram that shows the flow of data from external entities into the system, showed how the data moved from one process to another, as well as its logical storage (Ambler, 2006). Data flow diagram is required to illustrate the data movements and alterations through an information system in a top to down view. Its objective is to produce a straightforward logical model of an information system that is easy to understand.

The DFD level 0 diagram describes the whole data flows and movements in the system. The DFD level 1 diagram gives further explanation of the major processes that are stated in DFD level 0 and any of these processes can then be analyzed further in the next level. Our requirement of this project is only to illustrate the system until DFD level 1. In that case, any of our major processes are only expanded into DFD level 1.

10.0 References

ref : http://www.scribd.com/doc/7298188/PIECES-Framework
http://www.ucertify.com/article/what-is-the-pieces-framework.html

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