Hoosier Burger Case Analysis
Sarah Doppelmayr
Ashford University
Business Systems Analysis
INF340
Mark Revels
March 10, 2014
Hoosier Burger Case Analysis Having a dream since the 1970’s of owning their own restaurant, Hoosier Burger owners realized that dream when they noticed a for sale sign in the window of Myrtle’s Family restaurant while driving one day. After purchasing the business, the owners, Bob and Thelma Mellenkamp identified the need for an information system (IS) project in order to support their needs for a system that supported inventory control, customer services, marketing, and food preparation. The system has a strategic focus on improving day-to-day operations for the company, assisting Bob and Thelma in their duties as company executives. (Valacich, George, & Hoffer, 2009, p. 28) The systems development life cycle (SDLC) became an important part to the development of an effective system for Hoosier Burger. The goal of this system was to modernize the information system, by implementing four key steps of SDLC, (1) planning and selection, (2) analysis, (3) design and (4) implementation and selection. This improved system would replace the current system of paper records for the inventory control, customer orders, and management reporting systems. In addition, Bob and Thelma considered a point of sale (POS) system, which would allow them to generate reports that are more detailed and track inventory more accurately. As a family owned business, Hoosier Burger required a POS system that will not exceed the limit of their budget. The points of sales that this system should cover are the kitchen, dining room, counter, and storage area and office components. Some of these components would correlate with other points of sale, such as the order tickets and storage area. The purpose of the system would be to improve order and inventory accuracy while improving the profit margins of the business. Within the design of the system, there are subsystems to be considered. These include the storage area for the perishable food items delivered daily, the storage area for the non-perishable items delivered on an as needed basis, and the stock log form that is updated upon delivery receipt and nightly after the daily sales are calculated. The systems development has to focus on adaptive, people based technology rather than role based. It must also provide tools that offer automated support for some areas of the POS system. The project was selected based on the expectation to improve on important weaknesses the company is facing, due to their paper-based system. Improved inventory accuracy, customer order handling, and management reporting systems are the focuses of the project. By focusing on these areas, the system will improve the amount of time a customer will have to wait from the time their order is taken to the time they receive it, which currently can exceed 40 minutes. By reducing these wait times, Hoosier Burger will see improved word of mouth advertising with fewer incidents of negative feedback. Hoosier Burger Project Scope The scope of the Hoosier Burger Project is to provide positive returns in the inventory management, food preparation, customer service, and marketing areas. Hoosier Burger Project Feasibility Factors When assessing the project, it is important to keep in mind these six feasibility factors: operational, economic, technical, schedule, legal and contractual, and political. (Valacich et al., 2009, p. 108) The economic feasibility of this project is that it fit within the budget of Hoosier Burger while still meeting the needs of the business, as well as provides returns on the initial system investment through sales growth. Operational feasibility is seen through the improvement processes, increasing efficiency of the work atmosphere while aligning the company with the technical standards seen in competitive businesses within the same industry. Schedule feasibility is seen with the improvements in reporting, inventory tracking, and order taking systems, which reduce employee labor. The legal and contractual feasibility needs are met through the new system, as it manages sales, product cost, employee data, and salary correctly. Finally, if these five feasibility factors are met by the new IS system, then the political feasibility needs should be met, as all company stakeholders would see the benefit of the new system. The Project Scope Statement
General Project Information Project Name: Hoosier Burger’s New System Project Manager: Ed Rosario Project Sponsor: Hoosier Burger
Opportunity Statement Customer service and order efficiency have been reduced due to inefficient methods of tracking inventory, order taking and point of sale management and reporting. Improvements to these systems are required in order to meet company objectives for increased efficiency and profitability.
Project Objective To deploy POS systems for ordering, inventory control, and maintaining of employee information that are user friendly and have secured access to the internet at all times.
Business Benefits Improved inventory and order accuracy, sales based marketing, reporting, and record keeping
Project Deliverables Inventory tracking system, sales tracking system, management records and reporting system
Estimated Duration of Project March 25, 2012 – April 23, 2012 Identification of Business Processes Requiring Change By collecting documents and providing questionnaires to the customers and staff of Hoosier Burgers, the business processes within Hoosier Burger requiring change for increases in accuracy and efficiency can be identified.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires will allow the project manager to properly access the current state of Hoosier Burgers information systems and develop improvements based on the answers. Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire. Within the customer satisfaction questionnaire, the questions asked would identify how frequently customers dine at Hoosier Burgers, how satisfied they are with their meal, how they would rate the service they received, the value of their meal and one thing they feel would of improved their dining experience. They would be asked to explain their answers so that the answers could be analyzed thoroughly to identify areas requiring improvements. Waiter Questionnaire. The waiter questionnaire would identify the experience of the server, how experienced they are with handing busy meal periods, how adept they are at handling customer feedback, what experiences they feel contribute to their ability to be a good server and one improvement they feel would make their role within the business easier. They would also be asked to provide explanations for their answers. Cook Questionnaire. The cook questionnaire would identify what meals the cooks are proficient at cooking, what meals they feel are the most popular, what meals they feel would improve the menu of the business, their ability to delegate responsibilities within the kitchen while maintaining the quality of their dishes and what improvements they feel would contribute to their ability to do so.
Collected Documents In addition to surveys of the customers, waiters and chefs, there are other documents that can be obtained for further study. These documents include store financials, past supply orders and waste records, and written work procedures, instructions and recipes. Store financials would allow for you to gauge what times of the day are the busiest for the company. Supply orders and waste records can assist in identifying which items were the most popular amongst the customers. These records would also help you identify irregularities in the order and inventory systems, based on over ordering which would produce increases in wasted product. Written procedures, instructions, or recipes will allow for the study of the businesses workflow, thus allowing for the identification of the areas requiring the most improvement. System Improvement and Changes The owners of Hoosier Burger expressed their desire to purchase the empty plot next to their restaurant as well as their desire to extend the services they offer to include drive-through capability, increased dining space and a lunch-hour delivery option for businesses downtown. In order to accommodate these future improvements, it is important to design the new system for the easy integration of these features as they are introduced. While the level-0 diagram for the business would remain virtually unchanged, the level-1 processes and diagram would need to be adapted to include the delivery order process. The following charts indicate the level-0 diagram and the level-1 diagrams indicating the addition of the delivery service.
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Entities
Hoosier Burger receives orders from many downtown businesses. These businesses are allowed to charge these orders to an account, which is paid on a monthly basis. In order to provide quicker ordering for these businesses, the owners require that the system track order history for each business. This requires the identification of the entities, which require tracking. Hoosier Burger’s owners wish to collect the entity information in the following order: place, event, person, and object entities. This would allow Hoosier Burger to recall previous order information by business, individual employee, data, as well as items ordered. Attributes Following the identification of which entities to collect data on, the next step is for Hoosier Burger to identify the set of attributes for each entity that they wish to collect. These attributes will include the business name, point of contact and contact information of the company, which includes a phone number and address. Following this level of data, the company will want to collect attributes for each order placed, including the date of sale, sales total and the persons for whom the order is placed. Following this, they will collect the first and last name for the names of the employees of the business placing the order. Lastly, the system will need to collect the orders for each individual, listing the menu items and side orders selected by the customers. Identifiers To store the information being collected for the orders placed by customers, each client will require a unique identifier. This would be issued in the form of an account number. While this will remain the main identifier for the account, the business will utilize other identifiers, already identified through attribute collection, including the business name, address, and phone number. Each product should also have identifiers, which identify the product name, ingredients, and price. Finally, each new order will be assigned a unique order number within the system. E-R Diagram for Hoosier Burger In this final section, we will be identifying the cardinalities for each relationship and we will reflect them within the modified E-R diagram from Figure 7-10 in our text. (Valacich et al., 2009, p. 223) “Cardinalities of an entity is the number of instances of entity B that can (or must) be associated with each instance of entity A.” (Valacich et al., 2009, p. 219) The cardinalities for each relationship in Hoosier Burger are provided in the following E-R diagram, which is modified from the diagram on page 223 of the text.
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References
Valacich, J. S., George, J. F., & Hoffer, J. A. (2009). Essentials of Systems Analysis and Design (4 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.