- Project description
The Wobbly Wheels Delivery Real-Time and Dispatch Automation System is an IT based system to be implemented purposely to allow quick circulation and delivery of various company products. The system is anticipated to reduce operational costs in addition to increasing efficiency of operations according to the Wobbly Wheels (WW) management IT strategic plan outlined in the previous ITSP part2 feedback proposal. The system will be used mainly by account clerks, dispatchers, drivers and customer service representatives.
- Strategic Alignment
This proposed project is aligned to the business strategic objectives in the sense that its implementation will permit the company to offer customers with extra accurate and reliable delivery times and dates when it comes to tracking freight. Again, the company will be able to lower its operational costs by increasing the efficiency of system users once the objective of automating the routes and tracking deliveries is achieved. The IT strategy of implementing automation into the tracking and routing of packages is directly aligned with business strategies which include improvement of the loaded miles percentage, freight tracking, as well as route automation and delivery tracking.
- IT Portfolio Alignment
This project fits within the IT portfolio roadmap included in Part 2 of the previous ITSP. The project supports the overall management reporting through the automation of real-time routing and dispatch of company products. Since the project involves top company executives, we can argue it out as a relatively long-term plan which should be executed at a given pace to give enough time for accurate and reliable system implementation in order to realize its benefits. It should thus take priority in the timeline as it is connected to the company’s strategic objectives.
- IT Architecture
The project fits in with other systems in place since it defines various departments that will be affected. The accuracy and efficiency of the existing systems of financials, management reporting, fleet management system and others will depend on the success of this project in order to realize the corporate company goals by all other systems. The system will have to have to interface with other systems in place such as the financial systems to enhance accuracy. To ensure reliable and quick generation of general management report showing the company progress, and then this project must interface with all other existing departmental systems. According to the previous proposal made in the IT portfolio, this project will replace multiple systems which include Route Optimization & Freight Tracking Sys, Fleet Maintenance Sys and Management Reporting System when it is implemented to a fully automated real-time routing and dispatch system.
- Benefits
Enhanced speed of operations will be realized in freight and delivery tracking and the loading process. It will result to the second benefit of high efficiency of operations by users of the automated system hence high work output within relatively short time. The automation into the tracking and routing of packages will also bring about the third benefit of increased profit in the WWW Company due to increased customers with the corresponding high sales.
- Requirements
The major driver of this project is to meet growth and cost goals of the business through provision of warehouse services for customers, improving the percentage of loaded miles and to track whereabouts of freights in order to offer customers with accurate delivery dates and time. The requirements for the project include customer name, company, email address of customer, customer phone number, number of vehicles, ww delivery and ww freight all defined as user input requirement specification. The IT/system requirements include implementation software such as SQL, .Net, C++ compiler for programming and web design toolkit to match the skill sets of the existing programmers. In addition, system performance requirements like speed and accuracy among others will be needed.
- Cost Estimation
The size of the project appears to be medium due to the relatively large number of employees and range of customers served in addition to project duration that is neither short nor too long. The project is also very complex given that it is interdependent on other departmental systems of the company hence complicating the issue of overall management and cost which according to financial officer is supposed to be reduced. It will make it difficult for CIO to implement this project. As a result, trade-offs may have to be made to permit the schedule to slip thereby reducing scope(the definition of project result or its mission) and performance of the project or revise the budget (Lee, Keil & Kasi, 2012).
- Performance Measures
The following table shows how WW Company will know the extent to which the project benefits mentioned in section 5 above are achieved.
- System Development
SDLC is cascaded step by step and disciplined approach to system development. The planning phase is where the project objective is determined plus the requirements for developing the project. In the case, any other option is not found the information is put together into a plan that is presented to the management for approval. Apart from the IT team of WW, the expected users of the system such as the account clerks and some of the top executives like the company president may be involved to give their views during data collection process by the IT team (Ford et al., 2012).
The design phase is the architectural framework of the system. It consists of input design, processing and output design using the requirements collected from the planning phase. The system analyst from the IT team must be present during this phase (Ford et al., 2012).
The build phase is where the programming languages such as C++ and other related software are used to code the system according to the design already laid out. The WW programmers and web designers are some of the staff expected to be present during the process (Ford et al., 2012).
The testing phase is used to debug the already coded system in order to identify and correct errors that might be present such as syntax and logical errors. Programmers and web designers including system users should be present during the testing process which may include unit, module program, system and acceptance testing. Every feature of the system in this case is tested for functionality and performance (Ford et al., 2012).
The launch phase is where the system is implemented either partially or fully. The users in this case receive the system either an update or as a conversion in full scale. The individuals present in this phase include mainly users and programmers. The implementation method can either be through direct, pilot running, phased or parallel running change over (Ford et al., 2012).
References
Ford, C., Gileadi, I., Purba, S., & Moerman, M. (2012). Patterns for Performance and Operability: Building and Testing Enterprise Software. CRC Press.
Lee, J. S., Keil, M., & Kasi, V. (2012). The effect of an initial budget and schedule goal on software project escalation. Journal of Management Information Systems, 29(1), 53-78.
