Thursday, February 23, 2012

System Analysis and Design: Assignment 12



What is ERP?

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning; is the latest high end solution, information technology has lent to business application and it was developed to integrate several sources of data and processes that were created by any organization to unify their system. The various components of computer software and hardware are used in order to accomplish the combination of ERP softwares. ERP software packages are cost-effective in all organizations that are using it and it was provided by Silicon Valley.

Features of ERP
Some of the major features of ERP and what ERP can do for the business system are as below:
o ERP facilitates company-wide Integrated Information System covering all functional areas like Manufacturing, Selling and distribution, Payables, Receivables, Inventory, Accounts, Human resources, Purchases etc.,
o ERP performs core corporate activities and increases customer service and thereby augmenting the Corporate Image.
o ERP bridges the information gap across the organization.
o ERP provides for complete integration of Systems not only across the departments in a company but also across the companies under the same management.
o ERP is the only solution for better Project Management.
o ERP allows automatic introduction of latest technologies like Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Internet, Intranet, Video conferencing, E-Commerce etc.
o ERP eliminates the most of the business problems like Material shortages, Productivity enhancements, Customer service, Cash Management, Inventory problems, Quality problems, Prompt delivery etc.,
o ERP not only addresses the current requirements of the company but also provides the opportunity of continually improving and refining business processes.
o ERP provides business intelligence tools like Decision Support Systems (DSS), Executive Information System (EIS), Reporting, Data Mining and Early Warning Systems (Robots) for enabling people to make better decisions and thus improve their business processes.

Companies that use ERP Package

Baan ERP software was originally created by The Baan Corporation in The Netherlands. It was purchased by Infor Global Solutions in 2003. Baan ERP software is designed for manufacturing industries working on complex products with complex supply chains that work on different methodologies. Baan is especially suited for large made-to-order and engineering-to-order companies. Baan is used by companies like The Boeing Company, Ferrari, Solectron, Fiat, Flextronics, Evenflo, Navistar and British Aerospace & Engineering Systems. Baan is highly customizable and supports flow chart based process and procedure documentation.

Relationship of SDLC in ERP

SDLC stands for Software Development Life Cycle has its very important part in ERP. It is well known that in order to implement the ERP system, you must first gather the organizational requirements of their needs then the vendors try to create and develop the different packages. Vendors give their best effort in order to make a cost effective highly productive ERP package that enhances the capability of the organizations. As you know different phases of SDLC are:
  • Gathering organizational requirements
  • Make plan to implement ERP
  • Design ERP system
  • Testing of System
  • Rendering of ERP system to Org
  • Provide Maintenance of System
  • Provide training to user of that system including employees and end users

References:
http://www.siliconinfo.com/website_design_india/erp_software_developer_india.html
http://www.angelfire.com/co/troyc/erpca.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_5366970_types-erp-systems.html

Thursday, February 16, 2012

System Analysis and Design: Assignment 11


Based on my experienced as a student in University of Southeastern Philippines, I spent a lot of hardships on enrolling here in the university because of its not well planned procedures of enrollment system. Because every time the students starting to enroll in the university, I always hear in their comments of having a long line in every offices where they must undergo and finish every transaction. Especially for the scholars, they must fill up first the required forms in the Office of Student Services before they can renew their scholarships in the university. But before that, they must comply first all the requirements on their scholarship institutions because it is the first part of renewal of every scholarship of students, and it depends in the scholarship institutions on what are their requirements of renewing their scholarship grants. In that part, university’s enrollment system was excluded the requirements of every scholarship institution’s system of renewal of their respective scholars because it is their responsibility and not from the university. The only responsibility of the university with respect on the scholarship of the students is their renewal of scholarships in the Office of Student Services because it is the only requirements of all the scholars when enrolling in the university. But a long line in the Office of Student Services for the renewal of scholarships of the students is also a burden to all scholars because of not having an adequate and well planned venue for the students who must fall in line in the Office of Student Services for the renewal of scholarships. In that case, there are lots of problems in the part of the students because of time consuming procedure just for renewing their scholarships and it may cause on delaying on enrolling in the university for many reasons that involves time. In the part of the students, they want to lessen the burden of falling in line in the Office of Student Services for many hours just for renewing the scholarship. As for the non-scholar students, there is no problem regarding in their procedures because there is proper plan in implementing a queuing system in Cashier. But all of the problems that all of the students must face in enrolling in the university is the final part in the enrollment system, the process of being officially enrolled in the Office of the Registrar. Based on my experienced, it takes half day in falling in line in the registrar before the student can be officially enrolled, and my worst experienced in the enrollment system was to fall in line in the registrar for whole day because of very slow process in the part of registrar personnel and a very weak and not well planned procedures in the process in registrar. It may also the reason in the students of not having discipline in falling in line in the registrar because they want to shortcut the procedures in the registrar and it causes unfairness in the part of other students who take time just for falling in a long line just to finish the enrollment. In all of the procedures in the enrollment system, the process in the renewal of scholarships in the Office of Student Services and in the process in the Office of Registrar are the most time-consuming process of the enrollment procedure in the part of the student because of the slow process in that procedures. So to address those problems regarding the slow process on those two procedures in the enrollment system, the organization must select and develop a deployment environment to solve all the seen problems in the enrollment system.
            First of all, the organization must specify the system requirements to be developed in the enrollment system to solve all the seen problems in all of the procedures because it is very important in the organization that their requirements of the systems is compatible on the procedures they want to solve. Then the hardware and software systems they are using is not a financial burden to the organization because it may costly for them to use an expensive hardware and system software that are not important or useful in the enrollment system, or not necessary plans to implement in the required system. Next is the usage of strategic plans and architecture plans of the enrollment system. It is very important to use very well all the strategic plans in the system because it may costly in the part of the organization to implement an unnecessary strategic plan in the system if it is not working properly to solve the problems in the enrollment system. Planning the overall budget of the planned development environment in the enrollment system is very important to know how much they could spend on the project. Or it is worthy to spend much on the project or spend less and save much budget in their organization.

Monday, February 13, 2012

System Analysis and Design: Assignment 10


     As I have search different Data Flow Diagram for creating a representation of USeP’s pre-enrollment system, I have discovered that there are easy or summarize representation of Data Flow Diagram of pre-enrollment system and a difficult or detailed representation of the said evaluation. The Physical Data Flow Diagram shows the detailed flow of the process of pre-enrollment system of USEP and what part of the system does the student store their important data for their application. This Physical Data Flow Diagram includes the process of data processing for showing where in the part of the system did the data flows in the system. Data storage is very important in all kinds of business and organizational system because all of the transactions are all process by data and information. Because it is detailed, it can easily a find out the actual process if the pre-enrollment system.
     Data Flow Diagrams are just one of the basic models being used by system analysts in representing important aspects of the system. Data Flow Diagrams have differing characteristics and these facts are difficult to explain and point out and it is also visualize by the system analyst who is studying the procedures of the system. A system analyst must be dedicated to his work because it is very important behavior that he must possessed for him to properly done in studying the system. A system analyst must figure out the problem of the complexity of the system for him to create a solution based on the figures on data flow diagrams. And because of the complexity of the system, the analyst must have the aim for accuracy and completeness of the studied system. The analyst must be able to define the exact events that involved and taking place within the activities of the system to be able to find out the components of the data flow diagram, and he must be able to capture the overall process of the present system and create a high level data flow diagram where the general overview of the system is modeled out. The analyst must familiarized the whole system of the organization and the whole process of the specific system for him to expand more the general view of the system and create a more detailed data flow diagram and combining with data flow diagram fragments into process. But before creating a high level diagram of the system, the analyst must first create a draft of context diagram of the system so that it can always reviewed by every study that an analyst creates every time he upgrades the whole system into a high level diagram.
     Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) have two types; it is either Logical Data Flow Diagram or Physical Data Flow Diagram. A Logical Data Flow Diagram focuses on the businesses and organizational structures and how the business and organizations operates and it illustrates the business and organizational events that take place and the data required and produced by each result. It shows how the business and organizations operates and their business and organization activities. It has collections of data, regardless of how the data is stored, showing the representation of permanent data collections and showing data controls. The Logical Data Flow Diagram is somewhat the summarize representation of USEP’s pre-enrollment system because it only shows the activity and the process of the object to the whole system. It can be read by any person who knows Logical Data Flow Diagram. A Logical Data Flow Diagram’s symbols are used to describe logical entities and the process might be implemented as a computer program, a subroutine, or a manual process. The storage of data may represent a database, a file, and a book, a folder in a filing cabinet, or even notes on a sheet paper. The flow of data shows how the data move between the system’s components but they do not show the flow of control. The Logical Data Flow Diagram is the one who creates a logical model that determines what the system does and disregards the physical details on it works.
     The Physical Data Flow Diagram shows how the system will be implemented and it also represents how the current system operates in their whole system. It shows programs, program modules and manual procedures. It has physical files and databases, manual files. The types of data storage are master files and transaction files. Any processes that operate at two different times must be connected by a data store. It shows controls for validating input data for obtaining a record and ensuring successful completion of a process and for system security. Ideally, systems are developed by analyzing the current system (the current logical DFD), and then adding features that the new system should include (the proposed logical DFD). Finally the best methods to implement the new system should be developed (the physical DFD). After the logical model for the new system has been developed, it may be used to create a physical data flow diagram for the new system. The Physical Data Flow Diagrams are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. They are drawn to describe the performance of the present system so that it ensures the correct understanding of the present implementation of the system, the users are generally better able to discuss the physical system as they know it through people and workstations, and the present implementation of the system may be a problem or limiting factor and changing the implementation. It also implements dependent view of the present system showing every task that is carried out and how they are performed. The physical characteristics of Physical Data Flow Diagram are the names of people, forms and document name, names of department, master and transaction files, equipments and devices used, and locations. The Physical Data Flow Diagrams is drawn in the form of a diagram and creates a model of technical and human design decisions to be implemented as part of an information system. Their main purpose is to communicate technical choices and other design decisions to those who will actually construct and implement the system. The physical data flow diagrams are technical blueprints for system construction and implementation. The Physical Data Flow Diagram uses data flow diagram symbols to represent the system’s physical processes (programs, manual procedures) and physical data stores (files, databases, reports, screens, etc.) and shows how the system works. Some analysts like to start the analysis process by preparing a physical data flow diagram of the present system. Following the analysis stage, physical data flow diagrams can be used to document alternative solutions. The most complete and useful approach in developing an accurate and complete description of the current system begins with the development of a physical data flow diagram because it is desirable for the analysts in initially find it easier to describe the relationship between the physical components than to understand the procedure used in managing the application. Identifying people, what they do, which documents and forms trigger which activities and what equipment is used in the processing, and the movement of people, documents and information between departments and locations is also identified. The Physical Data Flow Diagrams are useful for communicating with users. Users communicate easily to people, locations and documents as they work with these each day. Users may consider Logical Data Flow Diagrams as abstract as they do not contain these familiar components while with Physical Data Flow Diagrams users can quickly identify incorrect or missing steps. The Physical Data Flow Diagrams provide a way to validate or verify the user's current view of the system with the way it is actually operating.
     Context Diagram is the summarized representation of Data Flow Diagram because it shows the whole system and the whole process of the system. All the process is already listed in the represented diagram. It is simple as other different diagrams but it already shows the entire sequence of the process of the system. The context diagram is the highest level in a data flow diagram and contains only one process, representing the entire system. The process is given the numb external entities are shown on the context diagram, as well as major data flow to and from them. The diagram does not contain any data stores.
     The quality of the data flow diagram that an analyst must create is to make sure that it should be understandable to other readers of the diagram of the system. There are maybe people or individual who are not studying information systems and may not have knowledge about these matters but it is important to know that they must also be able to comprehend the flow of the actual system as what and how the model describes, and it has to be internally consistent and balanced. A data flow diagram would not be able to explain a well-defined structure and process of the system if it is not balanced and it should be internally consistent. And the most important and crucial in the data flow diagram is that it must accurately represent the system requirements because its goal is to characterize the procedure and the in and out flow of data in the running system.

Reference:
http://me.emu.edu.tr/ie447/CIMLectureNotes2011.pdf