Computerize a Business Task

Computerize a Business Task

Computerize a Business Task Computerizing an Airline Reservation System Introduction:

One of the business tasks that I would like to computerize is an airline reservation system for a travel agent. Instead of the manual process being pursued by the organization, I would like to automate the Airline reservation system thus, making the process more efficient, accurate and quick. The Airline Reservation System (ARS) is a software application to assist an airline with transactions related to making ticket reservations, which includes blocking, reserving, canceling and rescheduling tickets. SDLC processes: i) Feasibility Study: The feasibility study is to evaluate various system solutions and to propose the most feasible one. (OBrien & Marakas, 2010, p.606) For example, the organization can start with the planning for this process by identifying the problem or need that needs to be addresses, i.e., automating the procurement process to make it more efficient, smooth and accurate. The feasibility study is sometimes used to present the project to upper management in an attempt to gain funding. Projects are typically evaluated in three areas of feasibility: economical, operational or organizational, and technical. A team comprised of an information system specialist, two business analysts, and an information technology analyst, assessed the aspects of the current manual process in place. They mainly concentrated on the bottlenecks of the current manual system. The project

team will need to evaluate via feasibility study that whether or not such computerization of the process is feasible. For example, it needs to evaluate factors that whether or not organizational employees can handle automation of such process and are well trained or not, whether or not sufficient infrastructure is in place to support such automation, whether or not it makes economic or business sense to invest in the computerization by evaluating the potential ROI or cost benefits

Computerize a Business Task

of this exercise, etc. Further, the project needs to secure the buying or support of top management as well as organizational employees. Employees might resist deployment of this system due to lack of knowledge and thus, change management strategies such as education, training, incentives and bonuses, etc. need to be used to overcome resistance among the employees. Operational Feasibility Improves turnaround time for an airline ticket reservation. Eliminates Human Intervention and need of maintaining hard copies of all records. Immensely improves statistical reporting, audit trails and gives management a detailed view of the day-today events. Technical Feasibility The new system will require only half of the current workforce to be employed and trained in the new system.

Economic Feasibility Operating costs will be reduced by more than 60%. Increase in revenue due to quick turnaround time. Increase in profits due to increase in new customers and the ability to serve multiple airlines. Human Factors Feasibility The management is fully supportive of this automation and is eager to see it go-live. Training is required for the retained employees on the new system. Customers would have be educated in the computerization process so that they no longer expect the manual service.

Costs of approximately $10K for purchase of new systems, Printers and telecom & networking equipment.

Legal/Political Feasibility The new software has to comply with all legal compliance that is required by state laws. All recordkeeping activities must be performed as per regulations. All partners of the agency must be informed of the decision to automate the system.

Computerize a Business Task

ii) Systems Analysis: Once the first step is user and the approval for the project is granted, the next important step is to define the requirements or needs or the users of the system or requirements gathering and analysis to develop definite requirements of the system or features/characteristics/functionalities of the proposed system. It is important to involve all employees in this exercise because they are the ones that will use the system and knows best about the process and thus, their feedback and suggestions/opinions is extremely necessary. As software is always of a large system (or business), work begins by establishing the requirements for all system elements and then allocating some subset of these requirements to software. A Context diagram would help in designing the system based on the managements expectation.

Computerize a Business Task

This system view is essential when the software must interface with other elements such as hardware, people and other resources. System is the basic and very critical requirement for the existence of software in any entity. So if the system is not in place, the system should be engineered and put in place. In some cases, to extract the maximum output, the system should be re-engineered and spruced up. Once the ideal system is engineered or tuned, the development team studies the software requirement for the system.

Computerize a Business Task

Design Stage: The next step after finalizing requirements is designing the proposed system. In systems design functions and operations are described in detail, including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams and other documentation. The output of this stage will describe the new system as a collection of modules or subsystems. The design stage takes as its initial input the requirements identified in the approved requirements document. For each requirement, a set of one or more design elements will be produced as a result of interviews, workshops, and/or prototype efforts. (OBrien & Marakas, 2010, p.612) The end users can go through the proposed design and suggest changes, if any, and once satisfied, can give approval for development of the actual system. The below diagram serves as a data flow diagram which aids in the design and development process.

Computerize a Business Task

Custom er I N T E R F A C E

DB-User

DBDB-

Flight Schedule Database

ARS software

DBGeography INTERFACE Cp

INTERFACE A Customer Administrator Via Phone

The next step is actual development of the system. The system is developed as per finalized prototype. Once developed, the next step is testing. The developed system is tested to ensure that it meets the needs of the end users and is functioning properly.

Computerize a Business Task

Implementation Stage: The next step is implementation. In this phase there are two stages, During the integration and test stage, the software artifacts, online help, and test data are migrated from the development environment to a separate test environment. At this point, all test cases are run to verify the correctness and completeness of the software. Successful execution of the test suite confirms a robust and complete migration capability.

Computerize a Business Task

The second stage is the installation and acceptance stage, the software artifacts, online help, and initial production data are loaded onto the production server. At this point, all test cases are run to verify the correctness and completeness of the software. In this phase, project team requires cooperation from the employees in implementing the system in the organization. The employees will also require training to handle the system effectively. Further, a plan needs to be implemented

Computerize a Business Task for routine operation and maintenance of the system.

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System Maintenance: Maintenance includes all the activity after the installation of software that is performed to keep the system operational. As we have mentioned earlier, software often has design faults. The two major forms of maintenance activities are adaptive maintenance and corrective maintenance. Maintenance work is based on existing software, as compared to development work, which creates new software. Consequently maintenance resolves around understanding the existing software and spares most of their time trying to understand the software that they have to modify. Understanding the software involves not only understanding the code, but also the related documents. During the modification of the software, the effects of the change

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have to be clearly understood by the maintainer since introducing undesired side effects in the system during modification is easier.

Process of Project Management: Please see the attached excel for the phases of project management as applicable to our Airline reservation system.

Project Management Process.xlsx

References

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OBrien, J.A. & Marakas, G.M. (2010). Management Information Systems (9th Ed.). McGrawHill/Irwin: New York, NY.