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Acknowledgement
First of all we would like to thank our Advisor BinihamAsnake, for his restless edition of our document, input to the quality of this document, heart full guidance, his valuable advice, and providing references and reading materials to execute this project.
Secondly we would like to thank Haramaya University General Service Management head especially AtoZemeduM. for his partial willingness of interview, patience in answering to our numerous questions, giving documents and reading materials that help us to precede our project.
Thirdly would like we thank to HaramayaUniversity department of Information systems for their acquiescence of 20hrs of laboratory class, free internet service and print service starting from proposal that make us to accomplish our project without any interferences. We would also like to thank HaramayaUniversity library members for their willingness of loaning more book, reference materials, and documents for this project work. At the last but not the least, even if it is unusual, the group members would like to thank each other. The main contributors to do this document project are teamwork, friendship and the belief that we may achieve something we set out to do. We also hope that this project and the documentation may be testaments to our continued friendship and better work. And it may also be the essence of success and symbolic witness of what we are going to work.
1.1.Introductio n
Investments in information technology have become crucial for firms to improve the quality of their products and services. Investment in information technology or information system has increased over a decade. “IT spending has grown 166 percent per decade since the 1970s as companies looked to technology as the “silver bullet” to spur their business growth” [1]. Investing in IT/IS is very crucial for all businesses in every industries. For example, “The foodservice operators must adopt technology as more than simply a cost of doing business. They must view it as a tool to help them attain their strategic business objective [2]”. At the same time, there are numerous possible IT projects that firms could invest in, such as, e-commerce, ERP system, new software development, etc. Due to the limited resources and time, companies must wisely choose to invest in the projects that match their business and economic goals. Therefore, the feasibility study is an integral part during the planning phase of the system development life cycle (SDLC) [3].
As a result, many developing countries have been starting using Information systems in their business. Ethiopia is one of the developing countries which are giving information systems training in different universities like in Haramaya University.
The present Haramaya University can be traced back to the agreement made in 1952 between the governments of Ethiopia and the United States of America which resulted in the establishment of the Imperial College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts. Oklahoma State University in the USA embarked on establishing physical plants and staff to run the college‟s academic, research and extension programs. The four-year B.Sc in Agriculture was started at Haramaya campus in 1954 with both limited staff and facilities available. The College became a chartered member of Addis Ababa University following the contractual termination of Oklahoma State University in 1967. Consequently, it was re-named the Alemaya College of Agriculture in 1989.
In the last few years, the University has witnessed tremendous expansion in the number of faculties, departments, students, staff and physical infrastructure. Apart from undergraduate programs, the university has widely been engaged in the expansion and diversification of graduate programs at Masters and PhD level.
they contact the manager to give them permission paper to take the item. Then he record the day the item must return to him and give the item.
In general, all these processes are done on paper which is time consuming and inefficient.
Problems in the existing system
Haramaya University General Service Management is one of the sectors that the following problems are found in it. Some of the core problems that are confronting Haramaya University General Service Management are listed below:
Not efficient and reliable way of operation
As a result, the Customers of the General Service Management are not satisfied by the services they gain from this section and it delays every activity in its current operational environment of the organization.
No security on files and documents
Because of item‟sinformation are being written on paper and then put it in the shelf, they may get damaged or someone may pick them out from the shelf carelessly.
Very difficult to search files
This is because the data they have is written on the paper or it is documented on the paper rather than computer, so it is very difficult to find the data or any items we need from the document, because it is manual.
Data redundancy
The data that is written on the paper can be duplicated, because, there is no method to identify the item recorded.
Time wastage
As a result of items information are not arranged in a defined manner, it is much difficult to find a record associated with specific items. Beside the time wasted, workers assigned to these
offices may get bored, giving an inappropriate service to the Customers of General Service Management.
No backup system is introduced
If one‟s Items information is lost it is difficult to get its copy. This leads Items to suffer a lot, even though they do what they are expected to do.
1.3.Objectives
The general and specific objectives of this project are stated below.
1.3.1. General objectives
The general objective of this project is to automate the General Service Management of Haramaya University by developing a computerized information system.
1.3.2. Specific objectives
To fulfill the general objective, the following specific objectives are stated.
To keep items information in efficient, reliable and secured way. To minimize time wasted to get Item‟s information. To minimize the time to serve the Customers. To computerize items registration; purchase requisition and requisition slip activities. To protect items from being lost. To increase ease of information exchange between each department members of the organization. To make ease the retrieval or searching of the items and documents in the simplest way. 1.4.Scope and limitation of the study
1.4.1. Scope of the study
The project scope is limited to only to automate the existing General Service Management in Haramaya University. Our project scope is further limited to do:
Accept personal information from customers
To know the total amounts of the items the system has. To know the availability of the items.
1.6.Methodology 1.6.1. Method of data collection
There are different kinds of methods to collect data. Among those we will use three major methods in order to gather requirement for the project three of them. These are: -
Interview: - We will use this method to collect the data using direct asking the people who are working in the HU General Services Management section and the manager of the section.
Observation: - We will use this method to collect the data using direct observing the current activities of the organization. The activities we will observe are: the way they store, search, manage, and update files and how they serve their Customers.
Questionnaire:- we will use this method of data collection by preparing different questions for Customers of this organization like how much they are satisfied from the service they get from this organization.
1.6.2. System development methodology
Methodology is a system of broad principles or rules from which specific methods or procedures may be derived to interpret or solve different problems within the scope of a particular discipline. Unlike an algorithm, a methodology is not a formula but a set of practices. Importance is one thing that is important if you want to have project success is having a consistent methodology across the whole organization.
The alternative of allowing different methodologies or no methodology is often inefficiencies, higher costs, longer schedules and of course higher risk. Consistency means having a standard way of managing all projects. It ensures that all aspects of the project are considered, evaluated and documented.
There are many system development methods. The information system development methodology that we will use to develop the software is water fall methodology combined with
Rational Unified Process (RUP). We select it because of its simplicity to manage and it takes short time to complete our project.
1.7.System implementation tools 1.7.1. Hardware
The computer hardware that we are going to use is: Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM), RAM: 2.00GB, Hard disk: 250 GB.
1.7.2. Software
The following are the list of the software we are going to use in our project. These are: Microsoft visual studio with ASP.NET 2012 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012. We select these tools because they are recent version soft ware and have more features than the old versions.
1.8.Testing and Deployment. 1.8.1. Module testing
The Haramaya University General Service Management provides all of the modules necessary to perform inventory control functions. The Purchasing department provides purchase order entry, receipts into inventory, vendor information, and lot assignment. A wide variety of inventory inquiry and stock status reports are available. The sector also provides for a variety of inventory issues, receipts, and adjustment transactions for use in tracking inventory movement. When used with the Production Reporting System, it can also be used to perform "where used" inquiries to control uselessness, and identify material shortages for those unexpected emergency production runs.
The newest addition to the sector is Customer Order Processing. Orders could be taken at any number of locations and synchronized with producing department for order fill and shipment.
1.8.2. Integrated testing
If they all work individually, they should work when we put them together. The problem of course is putting them together. This can be done in two ways: Top down integration : Modules are integrated by moving downwards through the control hierarchy, beginning with main control module are incorporated into the structure in either
There are seven different types of feasibility study. These are: economic, operational, schedule, legal and contractual, political, technical and risk feasibility study.
1.9.1. Economic feasibility
The developing system must be justified by cost and benefit. Criteria to ensure that try is concentrated on project, which will give best, return at the earliest. One of the factors, which will affect the development of a new system, is the cost it would require. The following are some of the important financial questions asked during beginning investigation: The costs conduct a full system investigation. The cost of the hardware and software,will benefits in the form of reduced costs or fewer costly errors.
Since the system will be developed as part of project work, there could be no manual cost to spend for the proposed system. Also all the resources will be available, and gives an indication of the system is economically available for development.
Tangible benefits: the benefits that can be easily quantified from our system are:
Minimize time of operation: since the system is going to be automated it will minimize time to complete different activities. Elimination of job steps: while the system is manual, if one person want to get items he or she must come up with different steps. But, after this project completed it will be possible to get or search the items easily. Maximize service: Reduce work overload: if one user want to get an item the item provider search many documents but when the project will be completed he/she can search and provide the item for the user easily. No processing error i.e. consistent: since all the works are going to be done by computer it never make an error when recording and updating files. It is multi function: It will provide the existence and non-existence of the items, manage the items and serve the Customer at the same time. Intangible benefits: those benefits that are believed to be difficult to quantify from our system easily are:
Develop moral of employee: this project will give good satisfaction for the employees and increase the respecting for their work.
Good decision making: by using the proposed system the manger could decide a good decision for every question he is asked.
Improve Customers good will: the users will have good interest to use the automated system rather than the manual one since it save their time.
1.9.2. Operational feasibility
The project would be beneficial because it satisfies the objectives when developed and installed. All behavioral aspects would be considered carefully and conclude that the project will be behaviorally feasible.
Once the project is set into operation, the following requirements needs to be satisfied:
Table 1.1: operational cost
Tools Average cost in birr Stationary materials 150. Printing and photo copy 200. Flash and CD-RW 120. Mobile card 100. Total 570.
1.9.3. Technical feasibility
Assessing technical feasibility is to evaluate whether the new system will perform adequately and whether an organization has ability to construct a proposed system or not.
The system must be evaluated from the technical point of view first. As the system that we are going automates for the Haramaya University General Service Management, it should have an ability to perform every work that is takes place in that section by the means of computerized rather than manual. While this system (the proposed system) starts its work there should be stockholders who can adapt to this system quickly. The assessment of this feasibility must be
System Design December 22/2012 January 8/2013 16
Coding February 1/2013 April 12/2013 73 Testing April 13/2013 April 30/2013 17 Deployment April 30/2013 End of May 30
Or we have done it by using Gantt chart as follows.
Chart1. Schedule feasibility
1.9.5. Political feasibility
From the establishments of General Service Management to till today it is working manually. After this project is developed it has no any complication on the position of any workers of the department. Therefore; the stakeholders of this General Service Management will happy to the planned project.
1.9.6. Risk feasibility of the study
One of the major risks could be rise in this system will be, if the organization would not provide a server, the developed system could not be functional in all the rooms of the system integrally.
The other risk will be way of keeping the proposed system. Once after it has installed it may be crashed. This means if they won‟t have the ability to keep this system, it cannot be functional.
The third risk is if the workers and employees of this department could not adjust their selves with this proposed system it may be useless.
1.10. Team configuration and communication plan
The team responsible for every activities of this project work is organized and grouped based on the rules of Haramaya University General ServiceManagement section. Our team members are:
- BeyeneBedasa, IsayasWakgari and RobsanDuga. Wewill develop the system together. We can summarize as follow.
Table 1.3 task management
Member of the group Their responsibility in the team RobsanDuga Database designer IsayasWakgari System analyst and designer BeyeneBedasa Programmer and front end designer
1.10.1. Communication plan
Every team work cannot be success without communicating and discussing with each other. So as our team member, we should communicate each other by discussing on the issues in general, for example how we design on paper before writing on the computer. And sometimeswe must divide and do a separate task to facilitate the project to proceed based on the schedule. And we must regularly contact our advisor (necessarily twice a week) to submit the progression of work
CHAPTER 2
2. SYSTEM ANALYSIS
2.1.Introduction
Analysis of the existing General Service Management and preparation of system analysis documents are the two main activities that must be undertaken to have better understanding about the existing system and the new system to be developed. Studying the existing system brings about an important contribution to the entire development process of the new system. It is after the completion of this step that we can realize what goes wrong, what activities are right and which activities should be encouraged and what alternative methods should be taken to increase the level of performance of the proposed system and to make it fully appreciable by the organization.
This document contains System Analysis of Haramaya University General Service management. The General Service Management is intended to be developed in web based application that can be accessed for General Service Management Employees and its Customers.
The goal of this system analysis document is to describe the overall functionality requirements of General Service Management of Haramaya University. The requirements stated in this document will determine the final product and functionality of the issuance of computerized services to many departments in the university and this document is used to evaluate the success of the project. This system analysis document is also describes the intended capability of the General Service Management in detail in order to enable the General Service Management software designers to design and implement the system.
2.2.Purpose
The purpose of writing this SAD document is to identify and describe all the functions, performance, constraints and specifications that will govern the General Service Management under development. It contains detailed descriptions of all project requirement specifications i.e. functions, user interfaces of the new system to be developed.
This System Analysis Document is primary document up on which all subsequent design, implementation and testing or validation plan will be based.
2.3. System Development Methodology and its life cycle
There are many system development methods. The information system development methodology that we will use to develop the software is Water Fall methodology combined with Rational Unified Process (RUP). We select it because of its simplicity to manage and it takes short time to complete our project, it is preferable. The other isafter we have finished we can re correct the error area of the project, because, waterfall is integrated with RUP.
The limitation of Water Fall methodology is that it should not be used for large projects which take longer time. However, the school of Information Systems at Haramaya University adopted this methodology.
2.4. Problem Analysis
To analyze the problems that are prevalent in the existing system, for senior project course, it is necessary to use fact finding techniques.
2.4.1. Fact finding techniques and Results
While doing our project, we used the following methods of data collection or fact finding techniques to gather information regarding the problems of the existing and requirements of the proposed system.
2.4.1.1. Interview
We use this type of fact finding technique to directly ask the manager, the employees of the general service department of Haramaya University and the some of the customers those used that system or those who get advantage from this system.
As the result we have get from the interview that we have asked the manager of the General Service Management, there are many problems in the existing of Haramaya University General Service Management. Some of them are: time consuming, No efficient and reliable way of operation, No security on files and documents, Data redundancy and duplication, Poor item information keeping system, No data backup system. Because, all the work in the general service management are paper based. The second question for the manager that we have asked is that:
permanent items are those which can be used up in processes. Thus, the department plays a great role in managing and controlling items and other internal activates.
The processes that are done in this system take place as follows. First, the items that bought by purchasing department are received by the receiving and handover section. Then, the receiving and handover section stores these items according to their categories. Some are stored in store one (fixed asset store), others are stored in store two (stationary store) and the rest are stored in store three (chemical store). After this, when the users want to take an item, they contact the manager to give them permission paper to take the item. Then, if the item is the returned item he/she records the day the item must return to him and give the item to them. If not, the users simply take it.
In general, all these processes are done on paper which is time consuming, costly and inefficient.
2.6. Problems of the existing system
Haramaya University General Service Management is one of the organizations that the following problems are found in it. Some of the core problems that are confronting Haramaya University General Service Management are listed below:
Not efficient and not reliable way of operation
As the result we get from the questionnaires we made for the customers or users, they are not satisfied by the services they gain from the General Service Management section and it delays every activity in the current operational environment of the organization.
No security on files and documents
Because information is written on papers and then put it in shelves, they may get damaged or stolen.
Very difficult to search files and documents
This is because the data is written on the paper rather than computer. As a result, it is very difficult to find information we need from the document, because it is manual.
Data redundancy
The data that is written on the paper can be duplicated.
Time wastage
As a result of item‟s information are not arranged in a defined manner, it is much difficult to find a record associated with specific items. Beside the time wasted workers assigned to these offices may get bored, might give inappropriate service to the customers.
No backup system is introduced
If items information is lost, it is difficult to get its copy.
2.7. Overview of the Proposed System
This section of SAD describes functions of the project and their objectives, constraints and requirements of the new system.
The Haramaya University General Service Management will be completely web based which provides General Service Management Manager and employees of the organization access internal system activities of the General Service Management and also provides as the Customer could gain the service from this system.
The system to be developed is not intended to be full contained but rather to allow General Service Management take some steps forward to future goal of highly automated system. The attention here is that on providing necessary system features at an affordable price (Not too expensive, so possible to buy).
Advantages of the Proposed System
The proposed system will be designed to eliminate the major disadvantages which are encountered in the existing General Service Management. There could be no many room for errors in the proposed system.
The proposed system can have advantages such as:
Decrease errors (data redundancy,)
