Company Brief
Kim Walker Sponsor kim@walstan.com
(021) 454-006
Kate Stanton Sponsor kate@walstan.com
(09) 360-5310
Mike Curtis Programming
Support ascendant@ihug.co.nz
(021) 444-338
Ian Howard Supervisor ianh@ie3.co.nz
(09)
376-6712
Davi Jea Mentor davi@online.ie (021) 1120-153
Jeremy Tam Mentor jwhtam@hotmail.com
(021)
1505-900
Walstan Systems Limited was established in
Walstan targets SME (small to medium) make-to-order
manufacturers with most of its client base located in
Current System
Currently Beacon is a
complete and integrated ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software system,
which is delivered “ready-to-use”. It consists of a wide range of features and
functions designed for the management of manufacturing. This comprehensive enterprise business
system also supports the client/server architecture over a number of platforms.
The
production scheduling system within the current Beacon system displays the
relevant information in printed reports and online queries. Using this
information, the production planner constructs a physical representation of the
information onto a planning board.
Technical Specifications (Platform):
Beacon
is built on a range of reliable technology. Windows NT is the major player in
its client/server system for the open environment, it may be used with
Microsoft’s Windows 2000 or NT4 servers, connected by LAN and WAN to Windows 2000,
NT4, 98 and 96, 32 bit clients. The design of the product is based on
Microsoft’s OLE/COM component design rules. Also utilised by Beacon is uniVerse
(IBM’s high performance post-relational database manager), PILOT and the Visual
Basic Graphical User Interface (GUI) to provide operational simplicity to the
user.
The
current platform architecture:
Limitations
of System
Beacon for Business is not user friendly by today’s
standards due to the nature of inputs and outputs being completely forms based.
Furthermore the use of commands for menu navigation can be very overwhelming to
a novice user and increases the learning time.
Impact
of System
Beacon is the only product offered for sale by
Walstan Systems Ltd; hence its only source of funding is from new license sales
of Beacon, annual renewals and user count upgrades purchased as customers
expand their own business.
Proposed System
Project
Purpose
The purpose of this project will be to create a
visually appealing and internet enabled production scheduling system that will
allow the user, typically the production planner, to view the loads placed on
various resources.
This module will
add another dimension to the existing Beacon ERP system, and hence enhancing
the marketability of the system in the global manufacturing marketplace.
The proposed system, Visual Production Scheduling
System (VPSS) will be an application that provides to the user, real time
accurate information and thereby adding to the value of the current system as
it will allow the user to see the flow on effects of a particular change in the
schedule immediately.
Target Business Benefit
Walstan will gain a superior advantage over other
competitors in the international ERP marketplace due to an exceptionally unique
application.
Our focus will be to convey the production
information currently stored in Beacon into a more visually appealing manner
which will allow for increased marketability of the product in terms of better
visual representation of data.
Due to the availability of an unrivalled option for
forward and backward scheduling that allows the user greater control over
scheduling tasks, this will empower the user with a greater foresight and hence
increase the ease of use of the product.
Outline of Proposed System
Our proposed system (Internet Enabled Visual
Production Scheduling System) will revolutionize the way the production planner
schedules and allows the user to interact with the system in a true graphical
interface.
We have decided
to transform the capacity and work load scheduling processes to allow users to
interact visually with the system. The
aim of this project is to develop an effective, easy to use, scheduling system
to optimize production management.
Beacon already
provides detailed capacity planning and work load scheduling processes. To use
these requires that data, such as dates, quantities, queue times etc are
changed and that results in the rescheduling of the job(s). We will allow the user to view the loads on
the resources that are used to manufacture the parts on the schedule, then to
“drag and drop” that load. We will show
the load on each work centre as a bar representing the time this job will take
on a particular machine, similar to a row in a Gantt chart.
The back end
processes that keep the corporate data will be updated by these changes as
though the dates and times had been keyed into the jobs schedule. Dynamic scheduling will alert the appropriate
personnel when an order might be late or more resources will need to be
acquired.
The project will
be fully functional through a browser, aimed at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer
at release 6 level in addition to being accessed through the wide area network.
Technical Specifications
(Platform):
The
proposed system have the same platform as the current system with the following
changes:
The
proposed application server will be IIS 6 utilising Microsoft’s .NET Framework
while our database server will be PICK.
The
proposed system architecture:
Target Outputs
- Application
– The goal of the
application will be to assist the production
planner by graphically displaying the production load
placed on each machine at a particular work centre. This will enable the
production planner to allocate resources more efficiently.
- Documentation – We will aim to decrease the
learning time of a novice user by providing clear, easy to follow, step by
step instructions which will be well structured and well written. Furthermore,
the code will be highly documented to allow future programmers to learn
and expand the system.
- Training - Complimenting the documentation
will be an interactive walk through tutorial which will guide novice users
through the important features of the system, and thereby equipping the
user with all the necessary skills required to maximise the benefit of the
system as well as their productivity.
- Provision
For Support – We
will be supporting users via help documents within the system and also by
providing a physical help booklet for quick reference.
- Target Users – Our system will be targeting SME (small to
medium) make-to-order manufacturers, in particular, production planners.
Deadlines and Milestones
Throughout the project there will be several
important deadlines and milestones which will occur that needs to be noted.
Most importantly will be the project milestones which we have personally set to
symbolize the completion of a major part of the project. The following lists
the major compulsory deadlines and milestones of the project:
|
Deadline |
Activity |
|
|
Planning for VPSS Complete |
|
|
1st Class presentation |
|
|
Project schedule due |
|
|
Analysis of VPSS Complete |
|
|
2nd Class presentation |
|
|
Project specification due |
|
|
Design of VPSS Complete |
|
|
Coding of VPSS Complete |
|
|
Mid year report due |
|
|
3rd Class presentation |
|
|
Project Handover (incl. Final report and documentation due) |
|
|
Project exhibition |
Contingencies and Discussion
We have identified several risks which must be
noted in order to prepare and avoid them. This includes the following:
- Scope Creep – Sponsors increasing the features
and/or requirements of the proposed system.
Contingency – Explicitly define what is included and excluded from the
system.
- Conflicts –
- 1) Major conflicts within the team could divert members from
achieving the goals of the project.
Contingency – To avoid conflict we have created a project charter and we
will endeavour to keep an open dialogue between the group members to avoid
misunderstandings.
- 2) Conflicts with our sponsoring organization could potentially
result in the abandonment of the project and the team by the sponsor or
harm the relationship between us and the sponsor.
Contingency - We will endeavour to keep an open dialogue with the
sponsors to avoid any miscommunication.
- Contribution – Team members not completing their
share of the tasks within the allocated time will lead to the team falling
behind schedule and thereby delaying completion of the entire project.
Contingency – To avoid this we have scheduled working times for all
members and have scheduled weekly meetings to discuss any issues that may have
arisen during the week.
- Technical Failure – Hard drive crashes
and other technical faults may result in the loss of work that would prove
disastrous. Another point to note would be that our module is reliant on
the current Beacon system, any system faults in Beacon would result in our
module ceasing to function.
Contingency – We will have multiple back-ups on multiple storage
devices.
Description of Activities
During the planning phase we will try to understand
why the Visual Production Scheduling System should be built and how Team
Walstan will go about building it.
The major deliverables in this phase will include the
project charter, project schedule (Gantt chart) and work plan.
Next we will conduct the analysis phase where we will
interview the users and sponsors of the system which will help us gather
information required to design the To-Be system.
The major deliverables in this phase will include Use
Case diagrams, collaboration diagrams, class diagrams and state charts.
Following the completion of the analysis phase we
will begin to design the VPSS. During this phase we will decide how the VPSS
will operate in terms of the hardware, software and networking components. This
will also include designing the true graphical user interface.
The major deliverables in this phase are the
interface design, infrastructure design and program design.
The major phase will be the development phase which
will include the actual coding of VPSS and unit testing and integration
testing. This phase will also include integrating our module into the existing
Beacon system and documenting our code as well as writing help manuals for the
users.
The major deliverable in this phase is the actual
working VPSS.
We have followed the classic system development life
cycle closely and each of the phases has specific tasks that need to be
completed before that particular phase is finished.