Unit 9 System Analysis and Design Assignment Brief

Case Study – British Computer Centre (BCC)

BCC has a Public Library which currently has about 800 members. A person who is 18 or above can become a member. There is a membership fee of £40.00 for a year. There is a form to be filled in which person fills personal details. These forms are kept in store for maintaining members’ records and knowing the membership period. Members are then issued with a membership card with their personal details and history of their borrowing.

A member can borrow a maximum of three books for three weeks. Some are reference books and members are allowed to borrow for 1 week only. He/she must have a membership card to borrow books. Whenever a member wishes to borrow a book the system should be able to search for the member’s history record for any borrowing. The member will only be allowed to borrow a book if he/she has borrowed less than three books. Otherwise the system should not permit that transaction. Each book is to be returned on the specified due date. If a member fails to return a book on the specified date, a fine of £1.00 per day after the due return date is charged. If in case a membership card gets lost then a duplicate card is issued. Accounts are maintained for the membership fees and money collected from the fines. There are two librarians who deal with book borrowings, renew, reserve and return. Approximately 70 members come to library daily to borrow and return books.
There are 5000 books available out of which 1000 books are for reference and can not be borrowed. The system should maintain records of all books in the library. These records contain details about the publisher, author, subject, language, etc.
There are suppliers that supply books to the library. The system must maintain records of these suppliers.
Many reports are also to be produced. These reports should contain details of the books available in the library, financial details, members’ details, and supplier’s details.Currently all functions of the library are done manually. Even the records are maintained on papers. Members of the BCC is currently are increasing each day. Maintaining manual records is becoming a difficult task. For example, checking the availability of a book for borrowing, renewing and reserving is a very difficult task in a manual system.
The system should also provide management with reports, such as books borrowed, reserved renewed, books available, members and accounts etc.
Manually producing the reports is a cumbersome job when there are hundreds and thousands of records. Management plans to expand the library, in terms of books, number of members and finally the revenue generated. It is observed that every month there are at least 50-100 requests for membership. For the last two months the library has not entertained requests for the new membership as it was difficult to manage the existing 800 members manually. With the expansion plans, the management of the library aims to increase its members by 75 per month. It also plans to increase the membership fees from £40.00 to £60.00 for yearly.
Due to the problems faced by the library staff and its expansion plans, the management is planning to have a system Analysis that would first eradicate the needs of manual cards. A system to automate the functions of record keeping and report generation. And which could help in executing the different searches in a faster manner. The system to handle the financial details.
You have been appointed as System Analyst to investigate the requirement for developing an automated library system for BCC. You are required to complete the following tasks:

Task 1

Discuss the various approaches/models to system development life cycle (SDLC), evaluate the usefulness and limitation of each approach (AC 1.1).
You are then required to choose one model that you find suitable for the new BCC library system and justify your answers using industry examples (AC 1.2).

Task 2

Discuss the importance, purpose and structure of feasibility study during the initial stages of BCC system development (AC 2.1).
In your discussion, you must assess the impact of the different financial, economical, and technical feasibility criteria on BCC library system investigation (AC2.2).

Task 3

Using the information from the case study, carry out an in-depth investigation using a fact finding techniques such as interview, questionnaire etc to capture the business requirements and specification for developing the automated BCC library system (AC 3.1). 

Task 4

Provide a short report to evaluate how the new library system meets the BCC business requirements outlined in the case study (AC 3.4).

LO1 Understand different systems life cycles

AC 1.1 evaluate different systems lifecycle models
AC 1.2 discuss the importance of following a procedural/staged lifecycle in a systems investigation

LO2 Understand the importance of a feasibility study

AC 2.1 discuss the components of a feasibility report
AC 2.2 assess the impact of different feasibility criteria on a systems investigation

LO3 Be able to perform a systems investigation

AC 3.1 undertake a systems investigation to meet a business need
AC 3.2 use appropriate systems analysis tools and techniques to carry out a systems investigation
AC 3.3 create documentation to support a systems Investigation
AC 3.4 evaluate how user and systems requirements have been addressed.