Challenges Faced by Printing Incorporated Book Publishing

System analysis and design is one of the significant steps that shall be carried out in the business to effectively analyse and understand the requirements of the system. The adequate analysis will provide detailed specifications of the system which will lead to development of the system design correctly. The members of the project team will get to know about the system behaviour, dependencies, and relationships.

The outputs of the analysis and design phases will allow the development and implementation team members to correctly develop the system and deploy it as per the expectations of the users.

Purpose of Work 

The purpose of work is to conduct analysis and design for the information system that is to be developed & deployed for Printing Incorporated Book Publishing.

Data & Information Collection 

The data and information for preparing the report has been collected from the proposal documents, business case, along with the requirements gathering techniques as interviews, observations, domain analysis, and brainstorming.

Key Problems 

Printing Incorporated Book Publishing is a publishing house that currently has over 50 employees engaged with it. The organization does not have a centralized database and an information system that is adversely impacting the performance of the organization. The sales persons maintain the personal standalone database in Microsoft Access that is not integrated with each other.

Two of the major problems that have been detected include absence of a centralized and automated tracking system for the maintenance of the manuscripts and maintenance of sales database. The sales resources must be aware of the sales operations and transactions going on and the resolution of the two issues will make sure that the streamlining of the sales operation is done. Currently, there are occurrences wherein two salespersons may work on the same author simultaneously (Pomffyova and Bartkova, 2016). This leads to the wastage of time and effort. The searching of the manuscripts is also a tedious task as the manuscripts are stored in separate folders.

The proposed system will be an automated information system with a centralized database that will streamline the operations of the publishing house. There will be centralized tracking system installed for the tracking of sales transactions and manuscripts.

• Design and development of the automated information system for the publishing house.
• To grant the users with secure access to the system.
• To integrate a centralized database and centralized tracking system in the information system.
• To integrate electronic tracking and capability to enter the notes.

The database selected for the implementation of the system may become a constraint along with the networking architecture and topology.

The requirements for the information system will be gathered using the following techniques.

• Interviews: The information system that will be developed for the publishing house will be used by the employees of the publishing house, administrator, business partners, customers, and other stakeholders. It would be essential to understand the expectations of each of these entities and the interviews will be conducted to gather the requirements.
• Domain Analysis: The organization is a publishing house and there are similar systems deployed in the other organizations within the same domain. The existing systems will be reviewed and analysed to determine the requirements (Jamshed, 2014).
• Observations: The current set of manual processes and activities being followed in the organization will be studied and analysed to find out the problems, issues, and loopholes. The requirements will be defined accordingly.
• Brainstorming sessions: These sessions will be organized to come up with new and innovative concepts and ideas to illustrate the functional and non-functional requirements.

• The customers must be able to secure login to the system and there shall be multi-fold authentication implemented at the login screen. The members as well as non-members must be able to log in with a unique identity.  
• The users for the system shall be defined as author, administrator, worker, and salesperson.
• Centralized database shall be integrated for storing and handling the system data comprising of sales information, details about the authors, and information on the books available in the publishing house.
• The details of the sales transactions shall be available and accessible through a centralized tracking system.
• The manuscripts must be stored and handled with the aid of the computerized tracking system.
• Ability to the workers to access and track electronic versions of the books using the information system.
• Ability to the workers to enter notes electronically.
• Ability to the authors to determine the status of the books using the online platform.
• Ability to the end-users to obtain the details of the royalties, sales, and associated calculations.
• Ability to allow the users to purchase the e-books from the online platform in any of the four formats as per their desire. The formats shall include
  • PDF format for Screen-optimized digital edition
  • PDF format for printer-optimized digital edition
  • e-Pub
  • Mobile
• Ability to allow customer to pay for their purchase using the online modes of payment.
• Ability to provide automated reports to the users comprising of sales transactions report, sales analysis report, book catalogue, and others.

• The users as author, administrator, worker, and salesperson shall be allowed to access the information system at any time of the day and from any location. Availability must be included as an essential system quality.
• Performance shall be included as a system quality so that the number of users accessing the system does not impact the system behaviour in terms of its response time or throughput time.  
• The details about the sales of the books, other sales related transactions, and business operations shall be valid and real-time. Reliability must be included as an essential system quality.
• Supportability and scalability shall be the two system qualities so that the changes associated with the system may be made with ease. It is certain that there will be some changes identified in terms of technology, user expectations, etc. The system must be scalable and supportable to handle and implement these changes (Ahmad, Belloir and Bruel, 2015).
• There may be numerous security risks and threats that may come up in the areas of information privacy and security. These risks and threats may be given shape by using the threat agents, such as users, networks, emails, servers, etc. The different forms of security attacks may include network-based attacks, data breaches, and leakage of the data sets, data loss, and many more. The system must maintain the security of the data sets at all times.
• It shall be easier and convenient to install the updates in the information system and the maintainability of the system shall be easily done (Sunner and Bajaj, 2016).
• The system must be platform independent in nature and it shall be easily accessed on any of the operating systems.

There are new requirements that have been added so that the current issues in the system are resolved and the performance of the organization is improved. The new requirements support centralized database along with centralized tracking system for the sales data and manuscripts. The problems of manual errors, wastage of time & effort, and other performance issues will be avoided with the addition of these requirements in the system.

• Printing Incorporated Book Publishing (Project Sponsor): The stakeholder will be interested in the system performance and its impact on the sales and revenues of the organization.
• End-Users: There will be four users associated with the system as author, administrator, worker, and salesperson. The stakeholders will be interested in the system functionalities and ease of usage.
• Project Manager: The resource will be responsible for managing the project and will be interested in the funds provided for the project, business case, and project team.
• Project Team: The design, development, and deployment of the new system will be done by the members of the project team. The stakeholder group will be interested in the project requirements along with the project stakeholders.
• Supplier Groups: The stakeholder group will be interested in the contractual and procurement process along with the details of tools and equipment needed for the project.

Proposed Solution

There will be four types of users that will be set up in the system as author, administrator, worker, and salesperson. The author will be the writers of the books and will be interested in sales and royalties. The administrator will manage the user roles, access rights, and permissions on the system. The worker will be the end-user groups and the sales person will be the sales resource interested in the sales transactions and reports.

As an author, I want to see the royalties to track the calculations.

As a salesperson, I want to track the sales data to maintain the sales flow.

As an admin, I want to extract report to maintain the organization performance.

As a worker, I want to view the details on the system to understand the offerings of the organization.

There are different types of solutions that may be used to develop and deploy the information system for the publishing house. Three such solutions with their pros and cons have been discussed below.

• Develop from Scratch: It will be the approach in which the entire code will be written from the beginning and there will be no involvement of the ready to use codes. The approach will make sure that the adherence to the original set of requirements is maintained. However, the process will be slow and costly.
• Cloud-based solution: The use of cloud-based platforms and services may be used with the involvement of cloud model as Platform as a Service (PaaS). The approach will be cost-effective and easier to implement. There may be certain security risks that may emerge with the involvement of cloud (Tewary and Kosalge, 2013).
• Customized Off the Shelf Solutions: The read to use solutions available in the market may be obtained and then customized as per the requirements. The deployment time will be quick and the system will be secure. There may be issues of compatibility and scalability that may emerge.

The publishing house does not have the skills required for the design, development, and deployment of the desired system. The use of internal resources is always cost-effective; however, the desired skill sets are not available for this case. Therefore, outsourcing of the development activities to the external parties is recommended for the information system.

Out of the three development solutions and approaches that have been listed above, the one recommended for the information system is the use of cloud-based platform. The recommendation has been given because the users and resources of the publishing house will be free from the tasks as maintenance and setting up of the infrastructure. The initial costs will also be low and the time to deploy will be quick.

There are certain steps that shall be followed to develop the information system as per the cloud-based platform.

• There must be feasibility study conducted on the information system to be developed using the cloud platform and the existing infrastructure of the publishing house.
• Planning and analysis activities must be conducted. Market analysis shall be done to determine the cloud vendor and the planning must be done in the areas of schedule, costs, and resources.
• The cloud vendor shall be contacted to use the cloud services and set up the platform for system design and development.
• Designing and development of the system modules shall be done followed by the integration of the modules.
• The implementation of the system shall be done using the cloud-based platforms.
• Testing activities shall be performed followed by the closure.

There will be various costs that will be associated with the system, such as cost of resources, design & development costs, training costs, and likewise. However, with the use of cloud-based platforms, the costs, such as set-up costs, infrastructure costs, and maintenance costs will be eliminated. This will make the system cost-effective in nature. Thus, the system will be cost-effective in nature.

The publishing house is currently facing several problems with the existing system. Two of the major problems that have been detected include absence of a centralized and automated tracking system for the maintenance of the manuscripts and maintenance of sales database. The organization management has discussed the need of an automated system and has brought forward the same with the decision to implement the system. The system will be feasible from the organizational aspects.

Development Solutions for the Information System

There are limited technical platforms installed in the publishing house. The automated information system will be compatible with the existing infrastructure and will be feasible from the technical aspects.  

The information system that is to be implemented in the publishing house may have several changes to be implemented in the future. These changes may come in the form of the technology that is implemented on the system. There may also be increase or decrease in the number of users along with the changes in the expectations of the users that may be witnessed. The system methodology shall be selected in such a manner so that it may handle the changes in the system. The methodology recommended is the agile methodology.

The recommendation has been given owing to the probable set of changes that may come up for the system. The agile methodology is ad-hoc and adaptive in nature and will be able to deal with the changes. The Waterfall model follows a fixed and sequential approach and the changes may not be easily implemented using the model. The use of agile methodology will also ensure that the end-users are always kept in contact and are communicated about the development and progress. They will be provided with the working products at regular intervals and their feedback will be obtained. Such an exercise will lead to the enhancement of user involvement and engagement levels with the system.

The overall quality will also improve as the changes will be made as per the comments received from the users.

There are various approaches that may be used for system modelling. Two of the most popular included structured analysis and design and object oriented design techniques.

The difference between the two is as illustrated in the table below.

Point of Difference	Structured Analysis & Design	Object Oriented Analysis & Design
Methodology	The methodology that is used under this approach is software development life cycle	The methodology that is used under this approach is iterative development
Focus	Primary focus is on the processes	Primary focus is on the objects
Risk	The likelihood of the risks is high	The likelihood of the risks is low
Reuse	Low	High
Maturity	It is widely used and is mature	It is emerging

The features, pros, and cons of the two approaches are shown in the table above. The approach that is recommended for the information system of the publishing house is object-oriented analysis and design. It is because the approach will follow the iterative development which will be in accordance with the agile methodology. The chances of the risks will be low and the reusability of the code will be high.

There may be several changes that may be detected and identified in the system. The changes shall be managed using the phased approach. The changes shall be identified and listed in the form of a change request. The change requests shall be approved and shared with the management. The management shall communicate the changes to the project team. The execution of the changes shall be done by the members of the project team. The changes shall be controlled and monitored by the change control board to determine that the implementation of the changes is effectively done. The change closure activities shall be performed by sharing the change details and information in a formal report.

Conclusion

Printing Incorporated Book Publishing does not have a centralized database and an information system that is adversely impacting the performance of the organization. The proposed system for the publishing house will be an automated information system with a centralized database that will streamline the operations of the publishing house. There will be centralized tracking system installed for the tracking of sales transactions and manuscripts. The problems of manual errors, wastage of time & effort, and other performance issues will be avoided with the addition of the functional and non-functional requirements in the system. The database selected for the implementation of the system may become a constraint along with the networking architecture and topology. The use of cloud-based platforms and services may be used with the involvement of cloud model as Platform as a Service (PaaS). The approach will be cost-effective and easier to implement. The system shall be developed and modelled using agile methodology and object-oriented analysis & design. The agile methodology is ad-hoc and adaptive in nature and will be able to deal with the changes.

• Book Order: The user shall be able to order the books from the online platform.
• Track Sales: The sales data and information shall be tracked.
• Login: The users shall be able to log in and logout from the system.
• Make Payment: The online modes of payment shall be included in the system.

Use Case ID:	USECASE1
Use Case Name:	Book Order
Created By:	Name of the Creator
Date Created:	24th October 2018
Actors:	Author, Worker, Salesperson
Description:	The user shall be able to order books from the online platform.
Trigger:	User login
Preconditions:	The user must be registered or shall be able to create an account on the system (Muhairat, 2010)
Post conditions:	Automated modes of payment
Normal Flow:	1. Open the system. 2. Search for the book to be purchases 3. Add to the cart 4. Purchase through site (A1) 5. Apply discount. 6. Make payment (A3)
Alternative Flows:	A1: 4.1 If purchase is not site, then not discount is applied. A2: 6.1 If customer is a member, then payment need not be done instantly.
Exceptions:	The payment gateway does not accept the payment made by the user.
Includes:	Not Applicable for this case
Frequency of Use:	30-35 times in a day
Special Requirements:	Credentials for user log in
Assumptions:	The user will be able to log in to the system and there will be network connectivity available so that the system may be accessed.
Acceptance Criteria	The book shall be available and the payment details entered by the user shall be valid.

References

Ahmad, M., Belloir, N. and Bruel, J. (2015). Modeling and verification of Functional and Non-Functional Requirements of ambient Self-Adaptive Systems. Journal of Systems and Software, 107, pp.50-70.

Jamshed, S. (2014). Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation. Journal of Basic and Clinical Pharmacy, 5(4), p.87.

Muhairat (2010). UML Diagrams Generator: A New CASE Tool to Construct the Use-Case and Class Diagrams from an Event Table. Journal of Computer Science, 6(3), pp.253-260.

Pomffyova, M. and Bartkova, L. (2016). Take Advantage of Information Systems to Increase Competitiveness in SMEs. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 220, pp.346-354.

Sunner, D. and Bajaj, H. (2016). Classification of Functional and Non-functional Requirements in Agile by Cluster Neuro-Genetic Approach. International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications, 10(10), pp.129-138.

Tewary, A. and Kosalge, P. (2013). Implementing service oriented architecture – a case study. International Journal of Business Information Systems, 14(2), p.164.