In: Operations Management
Creation of context diagram & DFDs (current and Proposed) ?
A few years ago, Ronald Montgomery founded Cultural Learning
Experiences (CLE), Inc., a small firm in Chicago that organizes and
plans educational trips for faculty and students seeking a unique
learning experience abroad. At first, the company focused mainly on
organising these educational experiences in France and Switzerland,
but as the interest continued to grow, Ronald increased the scope
of operations to include many other countries, including Spain, New
Zealand, Germany, and others.
Ronald has the help of Isabella Aubel (office manager) and two
other employees that help with the day-to-day office tasks. At the
present time, the work processes are entirely manual for this
organization. With the recent growth in the business, it has become
quite challenging for the current workforce to manage all of this
manually. Everything is rather disorganized, with many mistakes
being made with the recording of important information regarding
students and their scheduled classes and locations, for example.
Such errors are adding to the existing inefficiencies, thereby
creating a work. environment that is stressful and hectic. Even
more importantly, customer needs are not being met and customer
satisfaction is at an all-time low. It is, therefore, necessary to
implement a database solution at the present time. It is important
to note that while Ronald intends to eventually automate all
business processes, including payroll and accounts payable, the
more immediate concern is to make certain that efficiencies in data
storage are improved. The database solution should include a
user-friendly interface that allows for entry, modification, and
deletion of data pertaining to students, teachers, and classes, for
example. Additionally, the database solution should be designed to
ensure consistency of data entry (formatting) and should include
enhanced reporting capabilities. Such functionalities should be
considered in order to resolve the problems the company is
currently experiencing. The total amount available to fund this
project is $65,000. It may be possible to expand this budget, if
necessary, but the company is hoping that the project can be
completed with the specified amount. The company currently has only
two computers, both with the Windows 7 operating system and
Microsoft Office Professional 2010 installed. The machine is
currently being used for electronic mail communications and simple
word processing and spreadsheet tasks. It will be necessary to
purchase two additional machines for this office, as Ronald would
like all of his employees to have access to the new database
management system. Ronald is hoping that this database solution
will be instrumental in improving customer relations and employee
morale, as both are critical to the continued success and growth of
his business. With an automated work process, Ronald knows that
efficiencies within the organization will be dramatically
improved.
Cultural Learning Experiences, Inc. is essentially the middleman
between faculty and students & international opportunities to
teach and learn. CLE organises educational trips/programmes for
college students (to take) and college professors (to teach/lead)
in the USA and across the world.
You have been hired to provide them a mean to keep track of the
classes offered in destinations around the world, all of the
students who sign up for a particular class, the professors who are
teaching specific courses, etc. You have several goals that you
want to accomplish with this database. First, you will need to keep
track of all the
students –their studentID number, address, telephone number,
e-mail address, etc. You will need to keep track of faculty members
and their contact information as well.
As students register for classes and pay their registration fees,
the owners of CLE want to be able to record this information
directly in their database. An outside accounting firm handles all
of the billing processes. CLE simply provides this firm with a
physical copy of a report containing the information necessary for
billing. (Your team is responsible for designing this report.) All
payments are made directly to CLE. Beyond the recording of whether
or not the registration fees have been paid, this system should not
be concerned with accounting practices. The recording of all
billing and payment details will be handled outside of the
boundaries of this system. CLE also outsources the marketing
function and provides reports on a regular basis to an outside
marketing firm that seeks to inform potential faculty participants
of the educational trips that are available through CLE and to
increase awareness in general. You should design at least one
report that would provide useful information to this marketing
firm. (You may make assumptions here.)
CLE would like the database to be password protected. Beyond the
creation of these reports, Ronald wants you to focus on making
data-entry as easy and efficient as possible for her staff while
simultaneously ensuring accuracy of the entries. An organised
database, focusing on data-entry and reporting, is essential. (Your
team will need to explore various options within Access that will
allow for this).