Computerize a Business Task

Computerize a Business Task 1

Computerize a Business Task


Computerizing an Airline Reservation System

Introduction:

One of the business tasks that I would like to computerize is an airline reservation system

for a travel agent. Instead of the manual process being pursued by the organization, I would like

to automate the Airline reservation system thus, making the process more efficient, accurate and

quick. The Airline Reservation System (ARS) is a software application to assist an airline with

transactions related to making ticket reservations, which includes blocking, reserving, canceling

and rescheduling tickets.

SDLC processes:

i) Feasibility Study: The feasibility study is to evaluate various system solutions and to propose

the most feasible one. (O’Brien & Marakas, 2010, p.606) For example, the organization can start

with the planning for this process by identifying the problem or need that needs to be addresses,

i.e., automating the procurement process to make it more efficient, smooth and accurate. The

feasibility study is sometimes used to present the project to upper management in an attempt to

gain funding. Projects are typically evaluated in three areas of feasibility: economical,

operational or organizational, and technical. A team comprised of an information system

specialist, two business analysts, and an information technology analyst, assessed the aspects of

the current manual process in place. They mainly concentrated on the bottlenecks of the current

manual system.

The project team will need to evaluate via feasibility study that whether or not such

computerization of the process is feasible. For example, it needs to evaluate factors that whether

or not organizational employees can handle automation of such process and are well trained or

not, whether or not sufficient infrastructure is in place to support such automation, whether or

not it makes economic or business sense to invest in the computerization by evaluating the


potential ROI or cost benefits of this exercise, etc. Further, the project needs to secure the buying

or support of top management as well as organizational employees. Employees might resist

deployment of this system due to lack of knowledge and thus, change management strategies

such as education, training, incentives and bonuses, etc. need to be used to overcome resistance

among the employees.

Operational Feasibility

Improves turnaround time for an airline

ticket reservation.

Eliminates Human Intervention and need of

maintaining hard copies of all records.

Immensely improves statistical reporting,

audit trails and gives management a

detailed view of the day-today events.

Economic Feasibility

Operating costs will be reduced by more

than 60%.

Increase in revenue due to quick

turnaround time.

Increase in profits due to increase in new

customers and the ability to serve multiple

airlines.

Technical Feasibility

The new system will require only half of

the current workforce to be employed and

trained in the new system.

Costs of approximately $10K for purchase

of new systems, Printers and telecom &

networking equipment.

Human Factors Feasibility

The management is fully supportive of this

automation and is eager to see it go-live.

Training is required for the retained

employees on the new system.

Customers would have be educated in the

computerization process so that they no

longer expect the manual service.

Legal/Political Feasibility

The new software has to comply with all legal compliance that is required by state laws.

All recordkeeping activities must be performed as per regulations.

All partners of the agency must be informed of the decision to automate the system.


ii) Systems Analysis: Once the first step is user and the approval for the project is granted, the

next important step is to define the requirements or needs or the users of the system or

requirements gathering and analysis to develop definite requirements of the system or

features/characteristics/functionalities of the proposed system. It is important to involve all

employees in this exercise because they are the ones that will use the system and knows best

about the process and thus, their feedback and suggestions/opinions is extremely necessary. As

software is always of a large system (or business), work begins by establishing the requirements

for all system elements and then allocating some subset of these requirements to software. A

Context diagram would help in designing the system based on the management’s expectation.


This system view is essential when the software must interface with other elements such

as hardware, people and other resources. System is the basic and very critical requirement for the

existence of software in any entity. So if the system is not in place, the system should be

engineered and put in place. In some cases, to extract the maximum output, the system should be

re-engineered and spruced up. Once the ideal system is engineered or tuned, the development

team studies the software requirement for the system.


Design Stage: The next step after finalizing requirements is designing the proposed system. In

systems design functions and operations are described in detail, including screen layouts,

business rules, process diagrams and other documentation. The output of this stage will describe

the new system as a collection of modules or subsystems. The design stage takes as its initial

input the requirements identified in the approved requirements document. For each requirement,

a set of one or more design elements will be produced as a result of interviews, workshops,

and/or prototype efforts. (O’Brien & Marakas, 2010, p.612) The end users can go through the

proposed design and suggest changes, if any, and once satisfied, can give approval for

development of the actual system. The below diagram serves as a data flow diagram which aids

in the design and development process.


The next step is actual development of the system. The system is developed as per finalized

prototype. Once developed, the next step is testing. The developed system is tested to ensure that

it meets the needs of the end users and is functioning properly.

ARS software

DB-User

DB-Schedule

DB-Geography

Flight Schedule Database

Customer

Via Web INTERFACE

INTERFACE ‘A’

Administrator

Customer

Via Phone

INTERFACE ‘Cp’

DB-Reservations


Implementation Stage: The next step is implementation. In this phase there are two stages,

During the integration and test stage, the software artifacts, online help, and test data are

migrated from the development environment to a separate test environment. At this point, all test

cases are run to verify the correctness and completeness of the software. Successful execution of

the test suite confirms a robust and complete migration capability.


The second stage is the installation and acceptance stage, the software artifacts, online help, and

initial production data are loaded onto the production server. At this point, all test cases are run

to verify the correctness and completeness of the software. In this phase, project team requires

cooperation from the employees in implementing the system in the organization. The employees

will also require training to handle the system effectively. Further, a plan needs to be


implemented for routine operation and maintenance of the system.

System Maintenance: Maintenance includes all the activity after the installation of software that

is performed to keep the system operational. As we have mentioned earlier, software often has

design faults. The two major forms of maintenance activities are adaptive maintenance and

corrective maintenance. Maintenance work is based on existing software, as compared to

development work, which creates new software. Consequently maintenance resolves around

understanding the existing software and spares most of their time trying to understand the

software that they have to modify. Understanding the software involves not only understanding


the code, but also the related documents. During the modification of the software, the effects of

the change have to be clearly understood by the maintainer since introducing undesired side

effects in the system during modification is easier.

Process of Project Management:

Please see the attached excel for the phases of project management as applicable to our Airline

reservation system.


References

O’Brien, J.A. & Marakas, G.M. (2010). Management Information Systems (9th Ed.). McGraw-

Hill/Irwin: New York, NY.

Computerize a Business Task

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