System Analysis of a resteraunt And Design

Introduction

Through the years, technology has grown to become a very vital aspect in our lives. Almost every task in our everyday routines involves the assistance of technology’s innovations. This includes us being able to acquire our everyday needs with most ease and convenience. Among these needs include food. More and more restaurants have developed strategic systems and services to enable their hungry customers to obtain the food they desire within a shorter period of time. These services include doorstep food delivery, catering services and online ordering.

Apart from all those services, Sue and Tom Bickford have managed to come up with a very convenient restaurant meal-delivery service. Patrons of a variety of restaurants are able to order their desired food via a simple phone call without having to leave their homes. This brainchild of theirs has been branded Waiters on Wheels, or simply dubbed as WOW. The main objective of WOW is to increase convenience and reduce time consumption for people when it comes to getting their meals.

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Overview of the Current System

Waiters On Wheels have only been dealing with two restaurants initially and one driver to deliver the meals to their customers during the dinner shift. However, WOW has been expanding and the numbers of restaurants they are contracting with have been increasing as well.

Besides that, WOW does not utilize computers in their daily transactions. The current system of WOW is using only telephone services to obtain orders from customers. WOW has a limit of 10 lines available for this service. Moreover, WOW is currently using the “paper-and-pen” method when taking orders from customers. The staff will note all the orders placed by the customers, and sequentially sends the details to the delivery man. The delivery man will then head to the location based on the project.

Publicity of WOW is not much of a widespread. Their funds are to support advertising as well. Flyers printed are simple, only in black and white and are given throughout the most common places in the Klang Valley such as the Bukit Bintang area, Petaling Jaya area, and Titiwangsa area.

Problems

With reference to the overview of the current system, a number of problems faced by Waiters On Wheels has been identified. First of all, the system currently being implemented for WOW’s transactions is not effective. It may suffice for their previous operations which only involved two restaurants. However, presently they have been expanding in terms of the number of restaurants as well as customers.

WOW’s current system lacks the ability to keep track of all the customer orders and other details in association with their daily transactions, such as customer details as well as sales reports. This is due to the fact that there hasn’t been any usage of computers in their operations. With a computerized system, WOW will be able to swiftly get their hands back on a specific order and update the details with the restaurant selected in case of amendments done by the customer. This can help make transactions by the employees faster and easier. According to the current system, vital data can’t be stored effectively with easy access to them later on. This causes difficulties when the customer calls again wishing to change their order and also wastes the employees’ precious duty time.

The current system in WOW is only using telephone services to customers. WOW only has 10 lines available for this service. This will become a huge bottleneck when peak hours come; of the customers during lunch breaks and dinner times. As a result, the customers will have a hard time trying to call WOW for food reservations. This may lead WOW losing several customers as their service does not meet expectations.

Opportunities

By using the new system, the effectiveness of WOW can be improved radically. Firstly, the installation of computerized systems to completely replace their conventional “paper-and-pen” way of dealing with customers and their orders needs to be implemented. The company should purchase more than two computers to enable and effective backup system in terms of safe-keeping all vital information as well as having a preparative for the service in the event of computer breakdowns.

According to the current systems, WOW only does their business in certain areas; the company covers very little area. To earn more business and increase the popularity, WOW will expand the range of their coverage. Hence, it is best they open more branches of the WOW organization to increase efficiency of their services.

With the practical software inside the new computer, WOW can run their business easily and more effective. As mention before, the current system of WOW is using the ‘paper-and-pen’ method to take down the order from customer. With the new system, the whole menu will be listed and saved in the customized software used. Therefore, when a customer calls to make an order, besides the customer detail, the staffs of WOW just need to note down what order that customer require by clicking the list of menu that display on screen. Then again, the menu need to be categorized and arranged appropriately to avoid confusion among the staffs. For example, in Pizza Hut restaurant, types and sizes of pizza that offered are categorized accordingly in their menu. Moreover, 10 phone lines for the service is not enough, especially during increase during peak hours.

The drivers on the other hand are best contacted through the simple ‘walkie-talkie’ devices. These devices can cut cost, as well as transfer information regarding pending orders to all the drivers at once and receive confirmation of order collection immediately from specific drivers. When a driver agrees to collect an order and speaks it through his walkie-talkie, the operator as well as the other drivers receives this information. Besides that, information can be transferred at a higher speed, if compared to the conventional telephone calls.

Objectives

The owners, Tom and Sue had set several goals to be accomplished since 5 years ago. This system is to expand their service vicinity as far as possible. More parts were covered from time to time by opening new branches. Besides that, as the establishment goes, the customers’ service time is reduced. When this is implemented, the customers will tend to make more orders with WOW next time.

Other than that, the objective of WOW is to ensure the people will easily be able to get their food by us sending to them instead of them driving to the restaurant. WOW is meant to reduce the hassle of the people to go out to buy food since nowadays the petrol prices which are hiking up discourages people to drive out. With the existence of WOW, people will think that this service is convenient, resulting WOW to have new customers.

Fact-findings

The techniques that we used to perform fact-finding is through questionnaires and interviews. These techniques enable us to get feedback from the public from questionnaires and the interviewee from interviews.

Questionnaires

From the response of the questionnaires, a number of 150 people were chosen randomly at Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur without taking into account about their physical looks and their religions. 81.3% of the total number was locals while the remaining 18.7% was foreigners. As of the locals, 48.4% was Malays, 35.2% was Chinese, 13.1% was Indians, and 3.3% was other races.

76.7% of the public has ordered through food delivery. Majority of them used this service from the main fast food outlets such as McDonalds and Pizza Hut. On the whole, they made the order approximately once to twice a month and usually on weekdays. Most of the time, their total cost of their delivery is around RM20-RM35.

While making their orders, they mostly make their delivery through telephone calls. This is because they did not want to drive as the petrol prices are high nowadays. Furthermore, online services were not as well known compared to telephone services. Generally, the time taken to collect their delivery is about 30 to 45 minutes.

Interviews

To extend our research, we did an interview with the manager of Dominos about their delivery service. We asked the manager about how their delivery process works and how they cope with their problems faced.

Feasibility Report

Waiters On Wheels have evolved rapidly from a simple restaurant delivery system which initially only deals with a choice of two restaurants, to one that has begun dealing with a wider range of restaurants. The current system utilized is not at all suitable for their expanded business operations. Therefore, WOW has requested a computerized system which will be able to perform the following tasks effectively:-

1. To acquire orders from customers either via telephone or the company website.
2. To enable customers to choose from a wide range of restaurants listed.
3. To allow their drivers to notify WOW’s centre when they are finished with a delivery.
4. To record when each driver reports for work.
5. To generate fundamental reports such as:
1. End-of-day deposit slips
2. End-of-week restaurant payments
3. Weekly sales reports

Technical Feasibility

With the current system that WOW has, the equipment that they have now would not be sufficient for this system to work well. The new equipment which is about to be used will put an impact on the flexibility by improving it. The process of buying these equipments is not too much of a challenge for the company. All that is needed is a person with much required technical expertise to be able to identify and only install what is needed without wastage of any resources. Although the initial cost for the technical upgrades of the current system may be high, the costs are well worth it for a long-term usage. Judging by the rapid expansion of WOW’s business, it is safe to view these technical costs in a long-term basis.

There are a number of individuals who play vital roles in order to build a technically appropriate system. First of all, the project manager is obligated to ensure the smooth development of the project. The manager must only carry out important decisions after much consideration in terms of costs, time consumption, as well as delegation of tasks to his team members.

Other than that, the project manager must also choose the best technicians to deal with technical issues. These issues include, building an effective network, installing fundamental software as well as the hardware required for this system.

Besides, a good system designer is also required to plan and construct a proper system for WOW to utilize in its transactions. The system designer must include all the requested features into the system, as well as produce a user-friendly interface for the system.

Among the additional features which would be required for higher efficiency of the company’s activities does not only incorporate hardware, but also softwares. These features include:-

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– Hardware

Desktops

Servers

Cables

Modem & Wireless Router

Telephone

Mobile phones

Walkie-Talkies

– Software

Custom-made WOW System

Microsoft Office 2007

Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Microsoft SQL

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Economic Feasibility

With the new system that mention above, Waiters On Wheels are able to attract customer easily, as it service are very convenient and customer gain a lot of benefit through it. If more customers choose to order through Waiter on Wheels, this can help the organization to gain more profit and also attract other restaurant that wanted to form a partnership with WOW. Below are the estimated prices for the whole system.

Development Cost

Annual Operating Cost

Annual Benefits

Return on Investment (ROI), Net Value & Payback Period

Payback Duration = 1*365+(1- (195396.62/(195396.62+291705.62)))*365

= 583Days / 1 Year 218 Days

Return on Investment = (1,686,193.07-1241124.62) / 1241124.62

= 35.86%

ROI = [(Payback – Investment)/Investment)]*100

Payback period = (cost of project/investment) * (%annual cash flow)

Operational Feasibility

In the functional side, the system has to take into consideration whether it can fully support the business’ aims. With the existence of this system, it should be able to help the business by solving any problem that occurs as well as taking advantage of any opportunities that can help the business to be considered successful or useful by the company. On the whole, the PIECES framework can be used to work out any operational problems that take place. PIECES signifies; Performance, Information, Economy, Control, Efficiency, and Services. Those are the different types of features that the system will look into in order to solve the problem.

Performance

Performance is the capability of the system to fulfil business needs like such as whether it provides real time responses and throughput. When a customer calls the operator to place his or her orders, the built system must be able to have a response immediately. This is to ensure the operator can keep up with the information being received from the customer. It benefits the most especially during peak hours so that other customers whom are waiting for queue would not need to wait for so long. Moreover, when a regular customer calls the operator, the system also needs to be able to retrieve the customer details from the database to prevent the case of redundancy.

Information

Another part to be concerned with is the information produced so that it is precise and helpful information to the operators. All the information entered needs to be stored in the database in an appropriate format. This will result with more accurate information which is easily loaded from the records. Furthermore, when there are any changes of information being stated by the customer, action will be taken immediately. The customers’ details will be updated automatically by the system. On top of that, the information in the database can be used to produce reports for the managers to keep as their record and also to view at a more presentable form.

Economy

For the economy part, it explains about how the system is cost affordable. It also determines whether the funds used are fully utilized to prevent excess. When the system is under development, its cost is high. Nevertheless, after some time, the initial development cost can be settled after several months. With the fact that computers will be the key for this system, human labour can be used more often as a temporary alternative to save costs. After awhile, when the efficiency of the system improves, customers will be more attracted to the services provided which will result to increase in profits.

Control

When the system is used, it must have protection against frauds which guarantees security as well as accuracy of data and etc. With the help of protection software such as Kaspersky Anti-Virus, these problems are easily dealt with. Furthermore, hackers, viruses, spywares and malware will be blocked or deleted by this protection software from attacking the system. Critical information such as customer information will be set privileges so that only certain individuals can gain access to it. This is to prevent this information to be stolen by other people.

Efficiency

In efficiency, the ability of the system is to make full use of the current resources available for the business to run smoothly. This is also one of the aspects that will lead to the achievement of the business. Besides that, records must be easily opened to save time. Along with that, the system has to be accessible for the operators so that they will be able to perform their task without any difficulty to boost the productivity rate.

Services

Services are the capability of the system to offer quality and reliable services and whether it can adjust to the environmental changes. If a company does not adapt to the environmental changes it will certainly miss an opportunity to other companies. In view of the fact that the system is simple to use, operators will not have much problem to understand how the system works. Nonetheless, training is provided to those who are computer illiterates or if there are changes made to the system that some operators cannot handle. Technicians are also recruited to keep up the operation of the system so that it does not fail in peak hours.

Schedule Feasibility

The objective of schedule feasibility is to divide the tasks and time in a proper way, then implement and terminate it effectively. The design of the system needs to combine some particular area in order to complete the whole system. The Gantt chart and Pert Chart are placed in Appendix which illustrates the areas, progresses and time divisions of the system. By following the time that has already been distributed in the charts, we not just can accomplish the entire system, thus also can avoid misuse and exceed the appointed time. In addition to that, the workload matrix attached in Appendix is also an important material in the process. It divides the tasks for each member to take charge to avoid unfair circumstances occur.

Selection of methodologies

SSADM (Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method)

SSADM is a methodology developed originally by UK consultants Learmonth and Burchett Management System (LBMS) and the Central Computing and Telecommunication Agency (CCTA), which is responsible for computer training and some procurement for the UK Civil Service(Avison & Fitzgerald, 2006, p. 419). The main reason of this was to improve government service to public.

The main target for SSADM is produced computer system that fit the acquired purpose, by putting framework, carry out given task and also support organization IT strategy according to the timeline given.

SSADM is a data-driven method. Besides that, it also can consider as basic assumption that systems have a fundamental, generic, data structure which make no changes, even know processing condition may change. Within SSADM, this underlying data structure is modelled from early stage. The structured of techniques of SSADM fit into the framework of steps and stages, each will defined with input and output.

If the task that had been assigned cannot be fully completed on time, no further steps can be taken. To prevent this for happening, one should plan in details all the works so that it can be done before dateline.

Everything also should have it advantages and also disadvantages, below are all the advantages and disadvantages of SSADM:

Advantages:

1. Planning is easier with structure framework
2. Stages can be break down as it is useful for teamwork
3. This method is suitable for big project
4. Allow delegations of simpler tasks to junior personnel
5. Free for usage

Disadvantages:

1. Too much documentation
2. Not suitable for small projects
3. Can be very complex, as the documentation had a lot of stages

RAD (Rapid Application Development)

RAD is a term which has been introduced by James Martin from the year 1991. The goal of RAD is to speed up the development process that has been on the agenda of both general management and information systems for a long period (Avison & Fitzgerald, 2006, p. 128). Furthermore, RAD also promises better and cheaper deployment when the system developers and end users work together to develop this system.

RAD is used in order to speed up the development of the project by using computer-based tools to work as a key to overcome problems which might interrupt the delivery of the system. Apart from that, RAD divides the process of carrying out a system while working in a parallel to decrease time and efforts consumed by limiting development cycles.

There are a few RAD phases which come together in order to be more focused to the systems’ efficiency and user interface requirement, while other stages like the duration of development and design has been reduced. However, the system can be reverted to the planning phase, as it is possible to go back to development from the cutover phase.

If this company wants to use RAD as the methodology to perform this project, the users have to be involved in this project. This is due to the fact that they will affect the progress of the system overall, as the users will be the ones who will use it. As a result, the task implementation during the cutover phase is easy, because it meets users’ requirements as it was designed by them with guidance from the system analyst.

The diagram shows about the differences of traditional development when compared to RAD development (Avison & Fitzgerald, 2006, p. 129).

RAD benefits:

* Time needed to develop a system is lesser.

* Development cycles are shorter which will result in a cheaper system.

* User involvement is broader.

RAD detriments:

* Planning is not a main concern.

* It mainly focuses on resources and time as its functionality reduces (Avison & Fitzgerald, 2006, p. 129).

* Elements and prototypes which are reused again may cause irregularity in the designs.

OOP (Object Oriented Programming)

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming language model structured that surround by objects and data rather than actions and also logic. Here are the method of how input are produce and become output, as one specified program will been viewed as logical procedure that takes input data, process it and the final results will known as output data.

Besides that, it can also use simple objects and produce it to simple design application and also computer programs as this can improve the software construction. Here are a few steps that have to take to convert input data to output data:

1. Identify all the objects you want to manipulate
2. Relationship between all the objects that you had identify (data modeling)
3. Generalize it as class of objects using Plato concept
4. Define kinds of data and also logic sequences that can manipulate (Toodarkpark.net, 2000)

Each distinct logic sequence is known as method. What you run in computer is known as object or class instance, besides that it also provide computer instruction and class object characteristics which provide relevant data in the end of the day.

Choosing SSADM

There are 3 types of methodology had been mention above, which include SSADM, RAD and also object-oriented. After making comparison among the three, our group had decided and also come out with a conclusion that we will be choosing SSADM.

Based on the research that has been done so far, they had come out a conclusion that SSADM had considered the most matured types of method in UK. Besides that, after a few years it was introduced, government had included it into the consideration of main method as they wanted to ensure its usability and practically.

One of the main advantages is that SSADM builds up several unusual views of the system which are used to cross-check one another. Take building as an example, to help the customer to gain a deeper understanding on the structure of the building, the architect drew several different type of diagram and also explain to customer in details about the building structure. This probably helped the architect to validate the plans as he made sure that each view was consistent with the others. In SSADM, three different views of the system are developed in analysis. These views are closely related to one another and are cross-checked extensively for consistency and completeness.

SSADM are divided into 3 views:

1. The underlying structure of the system’s data (the Logical Data Structure)
2. How data flows into and out of the system and is transformed within the system (Data Flow Diagram)
3. How the system data are changed by events over time (Entity Life Histories)

(Ashworth & Goodland, 1990, p. 7)

Logical Design

Context Diagram

The context diagram is an ‘overview of an organizational system that shows the system boundaries, external entities that interact with the system, and the major information flows between the entities and the system.’ It is a highest view of the system. Besides, the context diagram does not include data store, holds one process, and few data flow and source/sinks (Hoffer et al, 2002). Context diagram is just a simple process or known as a beginning process of the system. It is easy to comprehend and not very complicated.

The entities of the WOW Food Delivery System basically consist of customer, restaurant, driver, and accounting apartment. First, customer calls in to make food ordering, tell their own information, and make payment when they get the food. On the other hand, the system will generate a receipt for customer in return. Second, the restaurant receives the food order list from the system and informs the food amount to the system. The system makes payment to the restaurant at the end of the week. Third, the driver report in to the system and get the information to make food delivery. Lastly, the accounting department receives the deposit slip and weekly sales reports from the system.

Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

Data Flow Diagram Level 0

Data Flow Diagram Level 1

Data Flow Diagram (DFD) describe as the movement of the data between external entities and the processes and data store within a system, and can use to represent both the logical and physical information systems (Hoffer et al, 2002). Basically, the DFD shows the relationship between the inputs, output, and process that occurs in the system and how they connect to each other.

Data Flow Diagram encompasses Level 0 and Level 1. The DFD level 0 shows the main processes of the system, data flows, and data store a high level of detail. Moreover, the DFD level 1 is explained more detail about the sub processes from the particular process on the DFD level 0.

In DFD level 0, the customer start informing their own customer ID by calling in thru telephone. The operator will key in the customer ID to find and check the account inside the customer database. If is a new customer, then have to make new registration to create a new account. Generate order begin which is process 3 when customer wants to make order. The operator will update the order information that require by customer to the customer database. Process 4 begin when the system send the customer order list to particular restaurant. After that, the driver from WOW Company will be informed to go to pick the order from the restaurant; this stage goes in under process 5. Later on, in process 6, the driver will start deliver the food to the customer. Customer will pay the customer charges for the order. Customer database will update the customer payment in process 7. At the same time, reports will generate deposit slip and weekly sales report to send to the accounting department.

DFD level 1 is the sub part of the level 0. Process 3 from DFD level 0 had been explored in detail. In process 3.2, if the customer wants to make changes of the order, WOW Company will update the previous order. Afterwards in process 3.3, total price of order will be calculated and update order to the customer database, also inform the new total amount to the customer, new order list will be produced after this.

Driver makes food delivery in DFD level 0 process 4. Before that, in process 4.1, the WOW Company will identify who is free at the time and the free driver will report back. In process 4.2 and 4.3, the driver will receive the order detail and identify the restaurant location.

Process 5.1 and 5.2 shows the driver go collect the food from the restaurant, then start deliver food to the customer. In process 5.3, driver will give receipt to the customer and get the payment. Customer database for payment will be updated and calculate the total for one day simultaneously.

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)

The Entity Relationship Diagram is a model that shows the logical relationships and interaction among system entities according to Shelly Cashman Rosenblatt (2008). The ERD represent the entities as rectangles and relationship as diamond shapes. The data flow from top-to-bottom and left-to-right. The diagram can describe the relationship in further aspects by using methods call cardinality. ERD use a common method of cardinality which called crow’s foot notation to represent the relationship by using some special symbol.

The crow’s foot notation ERD shows above. As illustrate from the ERD, one customer places many order at the time and many order can be placed by one customer. Another example of connection that has is between restaurant and food. One restaurant produces many foods and many food produce by one restaurant. Another connection includes is between customer and receipt. One customer can accept only one receipt and one receipt accepts by one customer.

Entity Life History

Entity Life History is to define the rules and regulations required for the actions with entities such as insert, update, and delete (Webmaster, 2002). This diagram attaches two basics diagram together, which is the Data Flow Diagram (DFD) and Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD). This diagram represents three types of entities which are the sequence, iteration and selection (Skidmore and Wroe, 1992). For the sequence type, there are no marked indicated and the event read from left to right. On the other hand, the iteration type will mark an asterisk (*) symbol and the selection type is indicated by marking with a small circle. Mark of both iteration and selection types are stated in the upper right hand corner.

As shows on the Entity Life History, customer is the first entity involved and the event contains new registration, telephone call in, account management, order, and order completed. Customer can edit their account by make changes and update their detail, and also can make changes of the order.

Second entity is the restaurant. The event involved is following the sequence type of entity. Firstly, receive order, then prepare food, generate bills, and lastly send out the food.

Driver is the third entity. The event involved is receive work and delivery order. Before deliver the food to the customer, the driver receives customer order, customer detail, and restaurant detail. When comes to delivery part, driver go pick the food and then deliver to the customer and receive payment from customer.

Use Case Diagram

Use Case Diagram defined as depicts the use cases and actors for a system (Hoffer et al, 2002). This diagram help classify the objects and the high-level relationships and responsibilities. To set up a Use Case Diagram, need to categorize the primary elements which are the ‘actors’ and ‘Use Cases’ first. Firstly, the actor uses a stickman as the symbol and indicates its name below. Secondly, the use cases use an oval shape as the symbol and indicate its name underneath.

The actors that have in the diagram are Customer, Restaurant, Driver, WOW system, and Accounting Department. The customer calls in thru telephone to make order with the WOW system. The system then informs the order list to the restaurant. The driver will be told and go pick up the order from the restaurant. The driver delivers the food to the customer and collects the payment from the customer. The system will generate report to the accounting department of the company.

Class Diagram

As mentioned from Shelly Cashman Rosenblatt (2008), a class diagram stands for a detailed view of a single use case, shows the classes that participate in the use case, and documents the relationship among classes. Class diagram converts the entities, data stores, and processes to data structures and program code. In class diagram, contains the class name at the top, and then followed by the attributes and methods. Besides, the lines that link shows the relation between the classes. The class diagram use UML notation symbol to identify the relationship between classes.

The UML notation symbol shows in below:

As demonstrated from the class diagram above, one customer can have anywhere from zero to many orders. One restaurant can have one to many orders, at the same time; each order can have anywhere one or many food items.