Muriu John

System Architecture and Integration(ITCO425-1702B-01)

System Integration Project

Michael Walden

6/20/17

Table of contents

Project Information

Winn Dixie is a major leading brand grocery store that are spread across the united states. The store has gone back as far as 1925. Most major cities are now building a Winn Dixie and closing its smaller stores. This store would bring great profit for all the investors as well as the people who shop from it.

The overall objectives for this assignment is to be able to place Winn Dixie grocery stores across the united states as well as convince old grocery stores to closed down and make Winn Dixie the main grocery store. This will help with the business in most states as well as keep businesses opened due to the fact that there will be profit coming from Winn Dixie.

Some of the businesses needs in order for Winn Dixie to be built are budget cuts in some cities as well as new vendors. Other grocery stores would need to close down their business in order to be able to contribute to Winn Dixie. Some of the technical needs would be having to install new software on PCs as well as buying new cash registers for each store being built.

Some of the major components that would be integrated into these systems includes checkouts, payrolls systems and inventory. The checkouts would need to be connected to the main Winn Dixie database which is on a server. As well as the Main office would have new software installed on there PC’s to keep track of inventory as well as payroll which would be connected to the main server. Job Titles would also be integrated for employees who have knowledge in the area. However, the name would be changed such as for example Harvey’s department managers would be switched to department lead and so on. Some of the boundaries would include store hours and locations.

Project Plan

Attached you will find the chart with the dates the project will go by.

System Integration Best Practices

I will be using the waterfall method for my project due to the fact that since Winn Dixie is spreading across the united states there has to be several things done in order for a business to be built. First we will start with the project initiation phase with the business owners of smaller grocery stores as well as come up with what requirements we will need to start the project. We will also discuss the budget that is being set as well as come up with a schedule to go by. Next we will start the planning process. During this process we will come up with how much its going to cost to build a new building as well as write out a schedule to keep everyone on track and then start the tracking process. We will then collaborate to start the modeling process for the design on how we want it to look and as well as analyze the results. After the modeling phase we will then setup the checkouts as well as the network that the pcs and checkouts will connect to in order to code and test the results to make sure everything works After all of this is done the team then will deploy the and delivery upon the plan that was written out. As well as provide support in case of something happens or on of the other phases are not working correctly according to the schedule. We then close the project.

Modeling

Communication

Construction

Planning

Deploy

Requirements Specifications

The new system is going to help customer have a better shopping experience as well as be introduced into a new grocery store. These new registers and stores will allow customers to be able to shop and checkout faster than having to wait in long lines as well as leave with bad shopping experiences. “It will also help with cost savings for retailers (George, para 1, 2013)” Watching users use the new system will allow for Winn Dixie to determine how to better there store as well check to see if customers are liking the new software and self checkout systems. The software installed should allow customers to pay for food items as well as gift items faster than standing in line and accept all payment methods such as cash, credit card, EBT as well as money orders. The new store should accept all forms of payments as well as comments on how to make it better if needed so. For this project I plan on convince the buyer to invest into this new cash register system and grocery store as well as have the system installed into there new store when the business gets built. The new building will also convince shoppers that Winn Dixie has better discounts as well as products available compared to other grocery stores.

Stake holders

Project managers, Network Analysis, Software designers and business analysis, Human Resources, Contractors, Security

New payroll system will be lead by the human resources team. There job is to ensure that the old payroll system is erased and the new payroll system will be implemented and work correctly.

New network system will be lead by the network analysis. There job is to set up a network that will connect to the new payroll system as well as the new database server and central database and inventory system so that the software will run correctly and keep track of what is being sold and brought in. Also the network team will setup a database server for the pcs as well as the checkouts and payroll systems to connect to in order to manage payments as well as inventory. They are also in charge of setting up a Wi-Fi infrastructure that every system can access.

New software will be lead by the software designers. There job is to install software on the pcs as well as the checkouts. This will allow for the project manager to see how the new checkouts work as well as check to see that the payroll system is working correctly as well as inventory on food items and sales.

Store setup and business will be lead by the Project manager as well as the business analysis. There job is to implement store design as well as keep project on schedule and budget as well as organize the store and office.

Security will be lead by the security team. There job is to place cameras on the building as well as install security on the PCs and checkouts and install alarm systems on the store.

Building will be lead by the contractors. There job is to building the store as well as draw up a blueprint for the Project manager to look over while being built.

Hardware components

Some of the components that are needed are 4 checkouts,4 PCs, a wireless Infrastructure, central database server as well as a database server, parking space, software and building. Some of the functional parts include having space for the new building. all checkouts having a cash drawer, monitor with software installed with built in touchscreen, barcode scanner, payment terminal that accepts bank cards/reward cards, receipt printers as well as a scale for produce items. All pcs and checkouts will also include software as well as a Wireless adapter card that adapts to the central database through Wi-Fi. This will allow for the checkouts as well as the inventory and payrolls to be on the same server. The checkouts will be connected to the central database which is connected to the database server. The office will connect to the database server which is connected to the pcs running windows 10 that keep track of the payroll as well as inventory. Both Pcs and Checkouts will connect to a Wi-Fi Infrastructure to be able to be online. This will allow for the project manager to keep track of sales as well as payrolls of each of the employees.

Winn Dixie

Checkouts

Checkouts

PC

PC

Central database server

Checkouts

PC

Checkouts

Inventory

Wi-Fi system

Payroll System

Database Server

Office

Function requirements

Provide a printed receipt for customer checking out. This will allow for customers to get a receipt after purchasing their products.

1. Identify customer through a swipe of bank card or ebt card and manual entry of a pin number when checking out. This will allow for people use bank cards in order to make purchases.

2. Allow customers to pay cash for products instead of card.

3. When paying for groceries allow for a deposit of cash after checkout if wanting cash back. This will allow for customer to receive cash back after checking out.

4. Be able to accept reward cards or reward points. This will allow for customers to save on groceries as well earn more points for spending money.

Non function requirement

A Toshiba checkout system is required

1. The systems can not connect to the bank system to process transaction.

2. The self checkouts must connect to the database server which shares data with the inventory system.

The objectives for this projective are:

1. Establish a new grocery store

2. Establish a new payroll system, inventory system as well as new software and hardware.

3. Establish new self checkout systems in grocery stores such as Winn Dixie.

4. Convince small cities to invest into this new system and grocery store.

5. We will not have trouble building this new store as well as getting the parts needed for the systems being installed.

The positive things from this project are:

1. Building a new system as well as checkouts for company’s

2. New buyers investing in the systems as well as new store

3. Gaining knowledge about how to invest in a new system

4. Gain new customers as well as new systems.

5. Being able to get the parts that are required

6. Convince buyers to build new stores and invest in this new self checkout system

Cons

1. Not being able to convince buyers to invest into this new store.

2. Not being able to keep project on schedule.

3. Spending could increase.

4. Cost of technology could increase

Enterprise System Integration Analysis

Quality assurance is a necessary factor in ensuring that integration process is done correctly and all the units being integrated together are functioning properly. Quality assurance involves activities that range from communication, specialists who build up the systems, vendors that provide the hardware recommendations for purchase as well as information quality assurance. In analyzing enterprise system integration, the following checks should be performed;

1. Recommend the documentation and control of the quality functions

2. Set the standards and qualification requirements for those who would be working in the integration of the newly proposed system. This would ensure that we would have the best or qualified system analysts, software engineers, network administrators and database administrators who apparently would promote quality assurance than the unqualified ones.

3. Define criteria for choosing the vendors for software, hardware and services is necessary in quality assurance. This would ensure we obtain the trusted vendors only who would provide original IT infrastructure like a wireless router, PCs and self-checking system that have the latest technology that would interpolate easily with the existing system and other constituent units of the proposed system.

4. Setting the process of procurement to be governed by acceptance quality criteria including documentation of receipt would be necessary in quality assurance. This would hold responsible all the users involved in the procurement agreement.

5. Formulating a system that would identify and correct conditions that are quality adverse. For instance, a mirror system should be set standby incase the self-checkout system fails, normal business activities would still prevail.

6. Regular testing of integrated units would ensure that every unit is checked for quality and consequently contributing to the overall quality assurance of the cumulative system. (James, 1998).

Enterprise System Integration Analysis is a very important process that would help the organization be able to how the new system will be accepted or implemented among its customers, employees, executives and other contractors in an attempt to ensure that the business goal of the organization is achieved. It assess how the information would flow in the organization and how different stakeholders in the company will associate with each other to make the system workable.

Information integration analysis

The flow of information in the whole system including the self-checkout, payroll and the database system should be consistent and accurate with all ATOMIC transactions ensured.

Information integration analysis is one of the checks that is necessary in Enterprise System Integration analysis. According to Brosey’s definition of Enterprise System Integration analysis, “It aims to connect and combines people, processes, systems, and technologies to ensure that the right people and the right processes have the right information and the right resources at the right time" (Brosey, 2001). Ensuring that the right people have the right information hence there are certain checks that should be made to enforce this;

Access level; there should be a set of access levels or permissions to access different types of information based on their sensitivity. For instance, employees at the checkout should be able to have feeding in permissions of the purchase or sale information when a customer makes a purchase at the grocery. They should have permissions to read or retrieve the price catalogue of different products based on the barcodes on them. They should also be able to feed customer’s points or bonus on their royalty card based on the products purchased. However, they should not have modification access to their payroll information on the database.

Role assignment: there should be assigned roles to the various personnel’s and department with each group having a shared access to certain information, processes and tasks. For instance, the database administrator should have privileges to the database, the network administrators should have privileges to the network analysis and implementation as well as keeping of logs, software engineer should have access to the software internal and external structure and security team should have roles of responding to security breach incidents and forensics as well as penetration testing. Computer technician should be installing the computer systems such as the self-checkout system.

System Interoperability analysis

This new system would need a well integration of various business process, people, information, technology among others.

People interoperability; there would be a need for all developers to come together to ensure that the integration testing of the system is successful. The various units of the system should be brought up together and organized such that they are interconnected together. The system analyst, software engineer, network administrator, database administrator and the executive should hold on meetings to communicate with each other’s progress on the new system deployment. They should share information so that they combine up and interpolate easily to come up with a whole system that achieves the main requirements and objectives of the system.

Technology interoperability; the system used such as weighing, display terminal and card payment system should integrate easily to allow customers to be able to carry out the purchase of goods through self-checkouts systems.

Information interoperability; there should be a connection of different parts of the system for the purpose of sharing information. For instance, the database in the database server, should be interpolated easily so as to allow customers, employees, executive and other personnel to access the data but with various level of access. For instance, the self-checkout system should send the information to the supervisor’s machine and would be able to supervise the purchase of goods by the customer such as confirming the weight indicated by the customer with the actual weight. The information should flow from the presentation layer to the application layer which would interface with the database itself. The connection between the various layers should be secure and accurate.

IT Business Value

A measure should be made to check if the IT technology employed would be beneficial. The cost of the IT technology should not be higher than the profit margin expected by the company. There should be feasibility study of the maintenance cost, security cost, implementation and purchase cost of the IT technology. The expected returns such as after one year should be evaluated to see if the total IT Business Value is feasible or profitable. Investing on information security is not exceptional because nowadays, threats to information security in such system like payroll system and inventory are many and a single breach can course the whole company to collapse within a month. Therefore, it should be considered as much valuable as an asset. (Peltier, 2005).

Systems integration Approach Evaluation and selection

Selecting the right approach for this system integration would involve a variety of checks or metrics. The approach used should ensure that the system’s constituent parts are assembled in a cost effective, logical and a comprehensive system execution as well as ensuring that all functional requirements are met.

When evaluating, consideration should be made to check on what is the need or objective for evaluation. Since this company deals with financial objectives and business management, then financial evaluation should be made on this new system. Also, since there is also a critical importance of the ICT, then the approach selected should include a technology evaluation. Other factors would include the duration of the integration process and the budget strap of the company. There is also another important check which is the interoperability of the various components of the system.

For standard considerations, it is important to evaluate s system integration approach by looking at the capability of acting as a standard model that can be used and iterated by all the stakeholders used in the integration of the system.

Another consideration for evaluation is the how long or how broad is the methodology modeling the integration; either the whole stage or beginning from the middle. The system to be employed in Winn Dixie system integration would require the modeling that covers the whole system cycle because the payroll and checkout systems to be integrated, there is need to understand the whole system life cycle and the flow of the information through various components such as the existing database server.

From the following evaluation matrix, GERAM methodology is the best.

Evaluation method score matrix

The system integration approach that I would feel best for this case scenario would be the Generalized Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology (GERAM). This methodology provides a consistent and standardized model of the various enterprise system’s operations. (Lobov, 2012).

Also, the methodology would model the complete life project history of the enterprise integration system from the initial concept, through definition, specification or functional design, detailed design, construction and ovsolescence. (Nell, 2006).

Proposed system Integration Components Architecture

GERAM methodology outlines components that complies to the enterprise engineering recommendation. The components of this proposed integration architecture are described below;

1. Generic Enterprise Reference Architecture (GERA)

This component would outline the concepts that are advocated for use in integration process of this enterprise system. Such concepts would include modeling of business processes, life cycle of the enterprise systems, users modeling languages such as system designers, IT, business users modeling specialists.

Identification phase; the system environment of Winn Dixie grocery proposed system includes; customers, warehouse, checkouts, payment cards, grocery stores and IT infrastructure. The other three main phases that would not miss in this proposed system are the System Change phase and operational processes phase. The System Change phase would include formulating the strategy of replacing the old system entirely. The ‘End of Life’ phase would involve the disposal or abandoned of the old system.

System integration

System Change

End of Life phase

Operational processes

Main GERA phases that would be covered up by the proposed system

1. Generic Enterprise Engineering Methodologies (GEEM):

The generic process that are pertinent to the enterprise integration would be included or defined by this stage. The processes models would be defined at each iteration of integration.

1. Generic Enterprise Modeling Languages (GEML):

This component would define the constructs or building blocks that would be used in the adapted enterprise modeling based on the various people’s needs which results to enterprise models.

1. Generic Enterprise Modeling Tools (GEMT):
   the enterprise-integration methodologies implementation would be defined by this component. This would support the use and creation of enterprise modeling’s.

2. Enterprise Models (EM):

This component would be useful in representing the operations pertinent to the proposed enterprise operation. The generic constructs of the modeling language would be used in these models.

Reference:

How to Start a Grocery Store. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2017, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/start-grocery-store-12178.html.

Publishing, V. L. (n.d.). Is Self Checkout Technology Checking out. Retrieved June 27, 2017, from http://www.valueline.com/Stocks/Commentaries/Is_Self_Checkout_Technology_Checking_Out_.aspx#.WVMe7qOZO9Y

T. (2017, April 21). Self Checkout System 6 with Kiosk | Toshiba Commerce. Retrieved June 27, 2017, from https://www.toshibacommerce.com/?urile=wcm%3Apath%3A%2Fen%2Fhome%2Fproducts%2Fhardware%2Fself-checkout%2Fself-checkout-6

Brosey, W. D., Neal, R. E., & Marks, D. F. (2001, October). Grand challenges of enterprise integration. In Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, 2001. Proceedings. 2001 8th IEEE International Conference on (Vol. 2, pp. 221-227). IEEE.

Peltier, T. R. (2005). Information security risk analysis. CRC press.

Jadhav, A. S., & Sonar, R. M. (2009). Evaluating and selecting software packages: A review. Information and software technology, 51(3), 555-563.

Lobov, A., Moctezumas, L. E. G., & Lastra, J. L. M. (2012, October). An approach to use PERA in enterprise modeling for industrial systems. In IECON 2012-38th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (pp. 4196-4203). IEEE.

Nell, J. (2006). Requirements and Methodology for Enterprise-Reference Architectures: A New Work Item Proposal.

James W. (1998). Laboratory Software Applications Development: Quality Assurance Considerations. Retrieved July 4, 2017 from www.bgladd.com/papers/ITORL1.PDF