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* http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/ <br>
 
* http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/ <br>
 
* http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/  <br>
 
* http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/  <br>
 +
* http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/ <br>
  
 
and any other online tutorials that we come across during our research. <br>
 
and any other online tutorials that we come across during our research. <br>

Revision as of 01:01, 13 August 2010

Worm Logo2.jpg

Team Formation

Cowabunga Team Explained

"Cowabunga!" a term oftenly use to express surprise, amazement and euphoria.

Like this word, our team aims to bring out the true essence of how both IT Intelligence with Business process can bring forth new and suprising ideas. The goal of our team is to help our sponsor automate their existing processes to help meet their business goals. As a team, the team name represent the fun we have through this FYP along with our dedication to provide the best for our sponsors. Through the team logo, you will notice a worm. This represent the inventory system that we are creating that forms , Warehouse Optimization and Resource Management System (W.O.R.M.S).

Members (Roles and Responsibilities)

Role Name Key Responsibilities Email
Project Manager/Liaison Officer Loh Chong Ghee (Jackson)
  • Schedule Management
  • Liaison with Client
  • Liaison with Supervisor
cgloh.2008@sis.smu.edu.sg
Business Subject Matter Expert Ng Kiang Pin
  • Translation of business practice in mathematical algorithm
  • Understanding best practice
  • Meetings Minutes
kiangpin.ng.2008@sis.smu.edu.sg
Business Analyst Danny Seow Liang Cong
  • Analyze current practice and highlight root causes
  • Develop solution with alignment to business requirements
danny.seow.2008@sis.smu.edu.sg
System Analyst Mohamed Saiful Bin MOHAMED NAJAIB
  • Database Administrator
  • Server Administrator
  • Coding Mentor
msaiful.mn.2008@sis.smu.edu.sg
IT Subject Matter Expert Seetoh Yong Chuen (Lex)
  • Schedule UAT Tests
  • Risks Management
  • Manage Change Requirement
yc.seetoh.2008@sis.smu.edu.sg
Design Architect Bevan Tan Junming
  • User Interface Design and Coordinator (Flex)
  • Wiki Administrator
bevan.tan.2008@sis.smu.edu.sg

Stakeholders

Supervisor: Li Yingjiu
Client/Sponsor: Chee Song Frozen Food Pte Ltd
Contact Person: Ms Tan, Manager

Company Background and Formation

Introduction of Company (Client/Sponsor)

Heart of the Supply Chain

Chee Song Frozen Food Ptd Ltd is a 14 years experienced whole-seller company in Singapore. Being a wholesaler in the frozen food industry, Chee Song is position at the heart of the entire supply chain.

The company has two main stakeholders, namely the suppliers and retailers. Inventory products such as frozen chicken stocks, muttons as well as beef are ordered from the suppliers on a daily/ weekly basis (dependent on products). Different suppliers offers different product range, and their product varies in prices on a daily basis.

The extensive product range and large quantity of orders, plus limited warehouse space, much consideration are taken before finally placing order quantities with the suppliers.

The second major stakeholders of the supply chain would be the retailers. The retailers are the revenue spot of the company, they order from Chee Song wholesaler on a daily basis. The orders are sent to the retailers to complete the full process transaction.

Key Objective and Motivation

Our main role is to understand the current business practice and process of the company, after-which analysis and determine the key issues and root causes of the current process.

Finally, implementing a IT solution that align with their business requirements, while addressing the root causes and delivering the key objective. The key objective set for us by our client is to find a solution that will provide them with greater inventory control and improve the operation efficiency of Chee Song.

Key Objective: Provide greater inventory control and improve the operation of Chee Song.

Operations Background

Operations Flow

Situated in Jalan Masjid is the main distribution center. Once the orders are properly assembled, they will be distributed by the company trucks to the various retailers (customers). As inventory in the distribution center is running low, they will send daily request form to the two warehouses to restock the distribution center. Ensuring that there is always sufficient inventory.

There is another two main warehouses that are situated within 5 minutes drive away from the distribution center. This two warehouses stores all the frozen inventory. Each day new containers from the suppliers will arrive and restock the warehouses. Due to the current implementation, there are many issues and high probability of overstocking the warehouses that results in extra expenditure as inventory has to be sent back to the suppliers and kept in the warehouses.

The flow of the process is as followed:

  • 1) New orders are made by the boss to individual suppliers
  • 2) The suppliers will deliver inventory on stated date to the warehouse
  • 3) Retailers will make their daily orders
  • 4) The distribution center will consolidate orders and send request form to warehouse
  • 5) Warehouse will pack the request order and trucks will arrive to pick them up
  • 6) Distribution truck will be sent from the distribution center to individual retailers

Root Cause Issues and Problems

Manual Inventory Tracking Method Reduce Real-Time Information Retrieval, Useful Information Are Lost In The Process

1) Lack of Real-Time Information

Problem Description: One of the key issue is the lack of real-time information such as current quantity in the warehouse, the boss have to contact the admin stuff to retrieve current stock information for individual products. The admin staff subsequently request for updates from the warehouse personnel. This rally of information is time consuming and have a long lag time.

Solution: Our proposed solution must remove the rally of information by allowing real time data to be presented to the users as and when they request. It serves to aid the boss in making better business decision.

Business Impact: Reduce the long processing time, Reduce probability of error propagation.


2) Lack of Data Analytics to Support Business Decision Making

Extensive information are not fully utilized for analytics purposes, decision making are based on instincts.

Problem Description: One of the key issue is the lack of intelligent analysis that will enable them to make forecast and planning of their inventory stock products. The current business processes are heavily reliant on manual paper recording. Currently, the boss relies heavily on his instinct, business experience to make decision such as the total quantity of product to restock everyday.

The lack of real time information coupled with no proper data structure result in many decisions that cause overstocking issue. Because the products are frozen and perishable, they must be kept in frozen storage space. That means that overstocked products are turn away back to their suppliers to be stored at their warehouse. The ‘loan’ of storage space is extremely expensive and drive the overall cost of operations.

Solution: Through historical data and transaction of products inflow and outflow, our proposed solution will provide understandable statistics and charts to aid the company boss in making better business decision. Based on the business requirements and current practice of the company, algorithms will be designed to filter and provide information such as “Seasonal Trends”, “Product/Demand Balancing” and “Optimal Product Level to Order”.

Business Impact: Reduce overall holding cost, Improve business decision


3) No Proper Structure or Warehouse Planning Aid

Problem Description: Currently, there have been a serious lack of warehouse planning in the company. The storage planning of the warehouse does not follow a proper structure. The inventory are often stored based on connivence. Every product does not have a designated area.

Furthermore, the warehouse is run be a few key personnel that has been with the company for some time now. Only the few key personnel knows where each inventory is kept, immediate replacement is almost impossible as it would require a lot of orientation to the inventory position. This also means that the store-man may have information such as expiry date or, which products are AVA-approved and which are AVA-Pending, that are not made known to anyone else in the company. Thus the boss does not have inventory control

Solution: Our proposed IT system would provide a digital mapping of the entire warehouse with each individual batch of products being shown on the overview board. The easy graphical overview would allow any new user to locate specific inventory without difficulty. Thus removing the dependency on key personnel that may be crippling in events where they are removed from the company.

Business Impact: Improved shared information, Improve inventory control, Reduced processing time

Proposed Solution (Scope)

Introduction of Warehouse Optimization & Resource Management System (WORMS)

After analyzing the workflow of the company and the key issues experienced. Our team recommend the implementation of ‘Warehouse Optimization and Resource Management System’. The customized system will supports two key business tier, namely; the Resource Management business layer and the Warehouse Optimization business layer.

1. The Resource Management System - allows Chee Song to track each transaction of inflow and outflow of their products from their warehouses, also provides current inventory tracking and status alert. Another important module is the support of business analytics where intelligent graphs, charts and statistics will be populated to aid business decision making for restocking inventory.

2. Warehouse Optimization - a smart and intelligent recommendation of warehouse optimization for Chee Song. Our team will be utilizing matching algorithm to facilitate optimization and maximization of proper address and product assignment.

Topology Diagram

upright=1.80‎

Our main deliverables to our client is to finally able to develop a warehouse optimization and resource management system that will enable them to solve the root cause that they are facing with the current business processes.

The following diagram is a topology of our project, highlighting the different areas as well as the key users that will be using our proposed IT solution. There are two main layers for proposed IT system: Resource Management Business Layer, Warehouse Optimization layer.

Key Users:

  • The Proprietor (boss)
  • Warehouse Personnel
  • Distribution Center Agent
  • Admin Staff Agent




To-Be Work Flow Diagram

‎Product Inflow of the Warehouse
‎‎Product Outflow of the Warehouse


1st Layer: Resource Management Business Layer

2nd Layer: Warehouse Optimization Business Layer



Technical Aspect of Solution

Running Application

  • Oracle 10g Lite Database
  • Apache Tomcat Webserver
  • Web Browser (Internet Explorer 8 and Modzilla Firefox 3 with relevant plugins)
    • Adobe Flash Plugin Version 10,1,53,64
    • Java Runtime Environment Version 6 Update 14

Application Development Support

  • JDK Update 20 with documentations
  • IDE (Either OR / Choose One Yet to be decided)
    • Eclipse Ganymede(3.4) or Galileo (3.5)
  • Notepad ++
  • Adobe SDK (AIR, Flash, Flex) with Flash Builder

Documentation Development Support

  • Microsoft Office 2007
    • Word
    • Excel
    • Project
    • Visio
    • UML Modeling

Document Sharing Support

  • Windows Live
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Dropbox
  • SVN
    • Server: Apache
    • Client: Tortoise

Project Management

Project Overview









Project Milestone and Schedule

Milestone Date
Confirm As-Is Workflow Model/Business Rules Model with Sponsor 6th May 2010
Confirm To-Be Workflow Process with Sponsor 7th June 2010
Proposal Submission 16th June 2010
Confirm/Sign Sponsor Change Policies with Sponsor 21st June 2010
Team Registration 16th August 2010
Walkthrough with Sponsor: Suppliers Management Module 11th July 2010
Walkthrough with Sponsor: Inventory Tracking Module 18th July 2010
Project Acceptance 10th August 2010
Walkthrough with Sponsor: Inventory & Space Management Module 26th September 2010
User Acceptance Test 25th October 2010
LIVE Deployment 30th October 2010
Poster 8th November 2010
Final Presentation 22nd November 2010

Assumptions

  • The sponsor will be providing the necessary hardware requirement for the implementation of our software based on a certain budget.
  • Software will be customize from scratch based on sponsor’s requirements
  • Risk exposure is minimal as team has identified the required hardware that builds on client existing infrastructure.

Risks Involved and Mitigation Strategies

CowabungaRiskAssessmentTable.jpg




















Risk Description Likelihood Impact Level Mitigation Strategy
Team is unfamiliar with Adobe flex which might cause delays in project development. H L 3
  1. Team would have to attend online tutorials to pick up the necessary skills before development.
  2. One Team member will focus on this area and conduct review sessions for the rest of the team members.
Team might not have adequate knowledge on networking and setup of system for 2 different locations if deployment is requested by the client. L L 1
  1. Learn from current member who have the knowledge on networking.
  2. Conduct extensive research on possible networking solutions for two different locations.
  3. We will also consult professors who have this area of expertise to help us.
The difficulty/severity of bugs is underestimated which might delay the project progress. H H 5
  1. Conduct consistent test run of the codes to ensure quality is maintained.
  2. Conduct code review constantly
  3. Bug metric tracking to make sure we record the types of bugs so that we can avoid them.
Graphic User Interface is not user friendly for the clients might have constant changes which will delay the project. M H 4
  1. Constantly gather feedbacks from clients for every module.
  2. Conduct User Acceptance Testing at different phase to ensure users are comfortable with the interface.
  3. Create User manual and conduct a simple session to familiarize and teach them how to use the system.
Team might not meet the industry requirements and government standards for meat processing and cold storage. M M 3
  1. To read up on AVA regulations documents issued by the government.
  2. Have constant updates and checking with the client to ensure that our project meets the requirement.
  3. Adequate research should be done so that we understand the sponsor and industry requirements well and are adhered to them.
Unavailability of group members resulting in short handedness and miscommunication. M L 2
  1. There is a rule for all members to constantly update the svn on their work progress (based on their allocated work), research conducted, and also constantly review the documents uploaded into svn to have a clear view of what is going on in the group.
  2. Members absent from meeting are required to read up on all meeting minutes to be updated.
  3. All members will have knowledge of each other’s progress and cover the job scope if need be.
Unable to communicate with warehouse personnel due to language barrier. M M 3
  1. When required, our Malay member would help us to do the communication and translation. To prevent miscommunication.
  2. However, most of the time whenever possible, we will communicate via English and seek clarifications before we start on each module.
Sudden changes requested by client which will cause a delay in the project deadline. H H 5
  1. Change Request Form to ensure that there is a standard procedure and review before changes are made to the system. Everyone would also be updated on the changes.
  2. Inform supervisor of the sudden change in requirements.
  3. Clarify the changes and relook at the schedule to determine the possibility of the change and advise accordingly.
Loss of business documents and data collected. L L 1
  1. We have a SVN to store all documents which would be frequently backed up at the end of the day by the Saiful.
  2. We will also keep a copy of all documents in a separate harddisk for backup after every meeting.

Resources and Reference

Hardware Required

Resources Reasons for resources/Alternative Resources
Client Side Router/Switch, preferably with wireless capability • Their current wired connection has already been maxed out.

• Server in placed needs to have internet connection or at least be connected to their local area network.

Dedicated Server/Machine to deploy our developed solution • If not possible, use Ms Tan PC, since it is always on and connected.
Our Side Dedicated Server/Machine to develop our solution just like the client’s. • This allows us to carry out testing of our solution

• To function as the SVN location to allow easy sharing of work files, documentations and schedules.


Time Required

Time Required Duration Reason
Client Time 2 Hours on ad-hoc Basic as and when required. • To clarify development doubts.

• To analyze the warehouse process more closely.
• Time does not include Migration.

Supervisor Time Fortnightly 30-60 mins per meeting • To seek advice, clarify deliverables doubts, and to be sure that we are on the right track
Training Time 1 week or 7 Days/Lesson or less • As some of our members are unfamiliar with the development tools(Adobe Flex and Flash), there is a need for us to spend some time to pick up the necessary and sufficient skills required for the development. This ensures to get everyone involved in part of the development and also to expose everyone to newer development platforms through the project.

Training Materials Required for Development

J2EE

Adobe Flex

and any other online tutorials that we come across during our research.

Learning Outcomes

Given the scale of this project, the team hopes to achieve the following learning outcomes from the project:

  1. To conduct feasibility studies on an existing business through analysis and design to make appropriate recommendations
  2. To learn how to conduct research specific to industry.
  3. To make appropriate recommendations and to create ideal solutions based on client’s requirements to automation of an existing manual business process.
  4. To learn the team dynamics required in project management and software lifecycle
  5. To learn how to bridge the gaps between user requirements and what the client’s business really needs.
  6. To pick up new knowledge that build on our foundations of programming like Adobe Flex or Linear programming.
  7. To learn how to translate and manage real-world project in relation to business requirements and market demand.
  8. To challenge the team and hardness the concepts that we learn in class into a real world business scenario.
  9. To convert business decisions into mathematical formulas (algorithms) to help in providing recommendations given the constraints.
  10. To convince our client of the need to upgrade as companies with slightly experienced workers tend to be resistant to changes and the use of computers.
  11. To analyze possible impacts caused by the changes made to the business processes and how to mitigate the negative impacts.
  12. To learn how to manage effort needed for the various proposed ideas and how to rescope it to fit project and client's requirements.