CHAPTER-3

i) A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO PROBLEM SOLVING a) THE SYSTEM APPROCAH Definition:- A systemic process of problem solving that defines problem and opportunities in system context and develop solution. Data is gathered describing the problem or opportunity and alternative solutions are identified and evaluated. Then the best solution is selected and implemented, and its success evaluated. Or The process through which a business problem can be solved is called System approach. The following figure shows system approach to problem solving

Define the problem

Develop alternative solution

Select the best solution

Design the selected system

Implement the solution

Now we explain steps involved in system approach 1- DEFINING PROPBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES:Problems and opportunities are identified in the first step of the systems approach. A problem can be defined as a basic condition that is causing undesirable results. An opportunity is a basic condition that presents the potential (possible) for desirable results. Symptoms must be separated from problems. Symptoms are merely signals of an underlying cause or problem. e.g. Example Symptom: Sales of a companys products are declining. Problem (Statement of the problem) Salespersons are losing orders because they cannot get current information on product prices and availability. Opportunity: We could increase sales significantly if sales persons could receive instant responses to requests for price quotations and product availability. SYSTEMS THINKING or CONTEXT Using systems thinking to understand a problem or opportunity is one of the most important aspects (feature) of the systems approach. When you use a system context, you try to find system, subsystem, and components of system in the situation you are studying. This ensures that important factor and their interrelationship are considered. This is known as having a systemic view of a situation. For example, the business organization or business process in which a problem or opportunity arises could be view as a system of input, processing, output, feedback, and control components. The following figure evaluating the system components of a sales system.
Feedback Control Poor Sales Management Incorrect sales information

Inadequate Selling Effort

The explanations of the figure The sales function of a business can be viewed as a system. You could then ask: Is poor sales performance (output) caused by inadequate selling effort (input), out-of-date sales procedure (processing), incorrect sales information (feed-back), or inadequate sales management (control)? 2- DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS There are usually several different ways to solve any problem or pursue any opportunity. Jumping immediately from problem definition to a single solution is not a good idea. It limits your options and hold up you of the chance to consider the advantages and disadvantages of several alternatives. Alternative solution comes from experience. A good source of solution is the advice of other. The more realistic alternative that recognizes the limited financial, personnel and other resources of most organization could be developed. Also decision support software package can be used to develop and manipulate financial, marketing, and other business operation. 3- EVALUATING ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS Once alternative solutions have been developed, they must be evaluated so that the best solution can be identified. The goal of evaluation is to determine how best each alternative solution meets your business and personal requirements. These requirements are key

Out-of-Date Sales Procedure

Poor Sales Performance

characteristics and capabilities that are necessary for your personal or business success. Criteria may be ranked or weighted, how to meet your goal. 4- SELECTING THE BEST SOLUTION Once all alternative solutions have been evaluated, you can begin the process of selecting the best solution. Alternative solutions can be compared to each other because they have been evaluated. For example, the two alternatives can be screened and ranked and selected or rejected, based on individual criteria or overall scores. For example, you could use the following decision rule in which alternative B is rejected and A is selected: 5- DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING A SOLUTION Once a solution has been selected, it must be designed and implemented. You may have to depend on other business end users and technical staff to help you develop design specifications and an implementation plan. Design specifications might describes the detailed characteristics and capabilities of the people, hardware software, and data resources and information system activities needed by a new system. An implementation plane specifies the resources, activities, and timing needed for proper implementation. For example, the following items might be included in the design specifications and implementation plan for a computerbased sales support system Types and sources of computer hardware, and software to be acquired Operating procedures for the new sales support system.. Training of sales reps and other personnel. Conversion procedures and timetables for final implementation. 1-POST IMPLEMENTATION REVIEW Monitored and evaluating the result of an implemented solution. This is called a post implementation review process, since the success of a solution is reviewed after it is implemented. The focus of this step is to determine if the implemented solution has indeed helped the firm and selected subsystems meet their system objectives. If not, the systems approach assumes you will cycle back to a previous step and make another attempt to find a workable solution. Q:- Define system development cycle. What steps are involved in the system development life cycle (SDLC) Ans. The step-by-step process to develop a new system is known as system development life cycle. The participants in the process are the Systems Analyst and the employee of the organization needing the system. The employee of the organization is often called the user. The user knows the organization need and the existing system how it work. The System Analyst understands computer technologies and how to go through system life cycle. The wise analyst keeps the user in mind. The system analyst and user must work close together throughout the system life cycle, so that the user gets the system they want and need. The steps involved in the SDLC are as under

1) Investigation 2)Analysis 3) Design 4)Implementation 5)Maintenance Now define all these five steps one by one

Investigation

Analysis

Design

Implementation

Maintenance

1- SYSTEM INVESTIGATION (Phase-1) System investigation involves understanding the business problem or opportunity. This stage includes the screening, selection, and preliminary study of proposed information system solution to business problem. We evaluate the feasibility during this stage. A Feasibility studies:- The system investigation stage requires a preliminary study called feasibility study, which involves determining the resources requirements, cost, benefits, and feasibility of a proposed project. A feasibility study is a study to find out whether the proposed system is possible, affordable, and acceptable. The goal of feasibility studies is to evaluate alternative system and to propose the most feasible and desirable e-business application for development. The feasibility studies involves cost/benefits analysis Cost/Benefits Analysis:- There are two types of cost/benefit analysis i) Tangible cost/benefits ii) Intangible cost/benefits Tangible Cost:- If cost can be quantified they are called tangible cost. e.g. cost of hardware, software, employee, salaries and other quantifiable cost needed to develop and implement an information system solution. Intangible cost:- Intangible cost are those cost which are difficult to quantify; they include the loss of customer goodwill or employee moral caused by errors and disruption arising from the installation of new system. Tangible benefits are favorable results, such as the decrease in payroll costs caused by a reduction in personal or decrease in inventory carrying costs caused by reduction in inventory. Intangible benefits are harder to estimate. Such benefits as better customer service or faster and more accurate information for management. The following are the organizational, economic, technical, and operational feasibility factor Organizational Feasibility:How well a proposed system supports the business priorities of the organization Economic Feasibility:- 1) Cost savings 2) Increased revenue 3) Decreased investment requirements 4) Increased Profits Technical Feasibility:- Hardware, software, and network capability, reliability and availability. Operational Feasibility:- 1) Employee, customer, supplier acceptance 2) Management Support 3) Government or other requirements 2- SYSTEM ANALYSIS (Phase-2):Definition Systems analysis is the process of examining an existing information system and its environment to identify potential (possible) improvements. Definition Analyzing in details the components and requirement of a system Definition Analyzing in detail the information needs of an organization, the characteristic and components of presently utilize information systems, and the functional requirements of proposed information systems. System analysis involve the detail study of the following a) An Organizational Analysis:- It is an important first step in system analysis. The members of a development team have to know something about the organization, its management structure, its people, its business activities, and its current information systems. For example, a new inventory control system for departmental stores cannot be designed unless someone on a development team knows a lot about the company and the types of business activities that affect its inventory. Thats why business end user is frequently added to system development teams.

b) Analysis of the present system:- Before designing a new system you must study the old system that will to improve or replaced (if there is one). You need to analyze how this system uses hardware, software, network, and people resources to convert data resources, into information products. Then you should document how the information system activities of input, processing, output, storage, and control are accomplished. For example, you might evaluate the format, timing, volume, and quality of input and output activities. c) Functional requirement:- In this step work as a team with Information System analysts and other end users to determine your specific business information needs. For example, first you need to determine what type of information each business activity requires; what its format, volume, and frequency should be; and what response times are necessary. Second, you must try to determine the information processing capabilities required for each system activity (input, processing, output, storage, control) to meet these information needs. 3- SYSTEM DESIGN (Phase-3):The system design phase is concerned with how the new information system will work. This proved an overall picture of how the new system will work. The project team uses the same tools developed to describe the existing system, such as entity-relationship diagram, data flow diagram, and data dictionaries. The team begins by specifying how the new system output will look. System design consists of three activities. a) User interface design. b) Data design. c) Processing design. a) User interface design:- It focus on supporting the interaction between end user and their computer based application. Designer concentrate on the design of attractive and efficient form of user input and output. It includes screen, Form, Report and dialog design. b) Data design:- Data design activities focus on the design of the structure of data base and files used by a proposed IS. It includes data element structure design. c) Processing design:- The processing design activity focuses on the design of software resources, that is, the progress and procedure needed by the proposed information system. It includes programmed and procedure design. 4- SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION (Phase-4): In the system implementation phase, the project team and management decide whether to create the physical system using internal expertise or to purchase it from outside vendors. In either case, hardware must be purchased and installed and program must be written. The system must be tested and users must be trained. When the team is confident that the new system is ready for use, the conversion to the new system takes place. 5- INFORMATION SYSTEM MAINTENANCE (Phase-5) Once a system is fully implemented and is being used in business operations, the maintenance function begins. System maintenance is the monitoring, evaluating, and modifying of operational e-business system to make desirable or necessary improvements. For example, the implementations of a new system usually result in the phenomenon known as the learning curve. Personnel who operate and use the system will make mistake simply because they are not familiar with it. Maintenance is also necessary for other failure and problems that arise during the operation of a system. The maintenance activity includes a post implementation review process to ensure that newly implemented system meet the e-business objective established for them. Error in the development or use of a system must be corrected by the maintenance process.

Maintenance also includes making modifications to an e-business system due to change in the business organization or the business environment. Q) Discuss Computer Aided System Engineering (CASE) and using CASE Tools Ans. A CASE tool is software, which is used to perform many of the activities of the system development life cycle. These software packages automate many of the process, required during system development. CASE tools serve different purposes: they aid in drawing data flow diagram or flowchart; they maintain records concerning data files, inputs, and outputs and they maintain system documentation. For example a system repository is a software tool to manage a special database for all of the analysis and design details of a system generated with other systems development tools. Integrated CASE tools (called I-CASE) are now available that can assist all of the stages of systems development. Q) Discuss the prototyping. Definition:- Prototyping an iterative system developing process. A small project team quickly developed a working information system and allows user to modify it until they are satisfied with it. OR Definition:- Prototyping is the rapid development and testing of working models, or prototypes, of a new application in an interactive, iterative process that can be used by both IS specialists and business professionals. Prototyping is the repetition of any process during the designing and implementation stages. This is used for removing different errors before finally implementing the system. The Prototyping Process:A system design team, quickly creates a high-level non detailed working model of the system. Users are then allowed to repeatedly revise the system, its reports, or its inputs, until they are satisfied with it. Once users are satisfied with the system, the design team creates an actual production system patterned after prototype. The prototype system is repeatedly refined until it is acceptable. End user with sufficient experience with application development packages can do prototyping themselves. Alternatively, you could work with IS specialist to develop a prototype system in a series interactive sessions. For example you could test, and refine prototypes of management reports, data entry screen, or output displays. Usually a prototype is modified several times before end users find it acceptable.