Download FairChild Pharmaceuticals Case Study

FairChild Pharmaceuticals Case Study
1. What information systems are we talking about?
Web based system for production scheduling and control
2. Name the stakeholders of the system.
System users, Carla Sanchez – (Chief Analyst/Project Manager), James Shultz - Intern
Project Oversight Committee, Project team – Project managers, Team leads, Business
Systems Analysts
Management, executives, end users, customers, distributors
Fairchild Pharmaceuticals, James Schultz, Oversight Committee, Users (key players)
Production division employees, Clients, External help (say consultants)
3. Specify the system design activities.
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Determining what changes will be needed to the company
Forming design teams
Choosing software system/ applications software to support web services
Database design- Decide how to store and access data- Integrate the database
Changes to company network- Design and integrate the network
Choose hardware to support new system
Decide on operating system, programming languages, tools
Determining compatibility of above and existing system
Architectural Design, Division of Labor, Develop Strategies for proceeding,
working in parallel
Design the application architecture (Process design)
Design the user interfaces
Design the system interfaces
Design Web-supported services
Design Prototype
Design and implement system controls
Monitoring the progress of the project / Controlling the project issues & risks
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4. What are the options for a) Hardware, b) operating systems, c) Database,
and d) Programming Languages decisions?
a) Hardware
Existing hardware, new hardware- Mainframe, Client/server architecture, virtual server,
clustered, Server hardware (Intel of AMD servers) mainframe is only for batch
Brands: Lenovo, Dell, CISCO, IBM, HP, 3COM, DLINK, LINKSYS
b) Operating systems
Windows, Linux, Mac/OS, Linux or UNIX for the web server and database,
Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows NT, Windows Server, Linux, Unix OS
AIX, BSD
c) Database
Oracle, DB2, Access, mySQL, SQLite, CouchDB, depends on the load, existing DBMS
or develop a new database and DBMS
d) Programming Languages
Java, Java Scripting (for user interaction), Java2 Web services, J2EE, C, C#, Pearl,
COBOL, ABAP, Microsoft.NET, SOAP, AJAX, PHP, embedded SQL, COM+, CORBA,
SOAP, Pythan, Ruby, Haskell, Smalltalk, Erlang, BASIC, Visual Basic, D, LISP,
5. Specify the outputs of each design activities.
Diagrams that describe architecture of new system and detailed logic of programming
components.
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Architectural Design:
Division of Labor:
Develop Strategies:
Working in parallel:
A plan for the design of the system
Who to do what (Gantt chart)
Critical Path and/or Pert chart.
Doing the work on budget and on time.
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Data flow diagrams, Structure charts, Class diagrams, Interaction Diagrams
GUI, Sound, Video, Voice
Information becomes widespread across the org.
Integration between new and existing databases
Prototype (Working)
Safeguards to protect Organization’s Assets
Choosing system software to support web services
o The system software package
 Determining what changes will be needed to the network
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o A list of changes
o Modified network
o Nodes- location diagram
 Designing the database
o A database
 Deciding system security & control
 Forming design teams
o A design team and their tasks
o Assigning specific tasks to employees
 User interface design, Dialogues, Forms, Reports
o GUI
 Deciding what hardware will support the new system
o List of hardware needed to support the system
 Deciding what operating system will be used
o List of operating systems
 How we will store and access data
o List of database options
 Deciding what languages and tools we will use
 List of programming languages
6. Specify the names of the documents generated.
Database Design: Entity Relationship Diagrams, , Query Report Design.
Process Design: Functional Decomposition Diagram, Event Table, Structure Charts,
Flowcharts, Context Diagrams, Data Flow Diagram, Decision Charts, Gantt Charts
Software Design: Module Diagram, pseudo-code.
A plan for the design of the system:
Who to do what (Gantt chart):
Critical Path and/or Pert chart:
Doing the work on budget and on time:
Blueprint
Gantt chart
Pert Chart, CPM chart
Tracking Gantt
RFP for Software packages, RFP for hardware support
Object oriented design documents: Activity diagrams, Use-case diagrams, Event tables,
Software Design (Structured/ conditional/ Iterative), Design class diagrams, Object
database schema
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7. What are the project management activities during systems design?
Prevent, anticipate and/or overcome problems and circumstances in order to complete the
project scope on schedule, within budget, and to the customer’s satisfaction, through
activities such as planning, meeting with steering committee, deciding on and delegating
tasks, meeting with project teams.
Meeting, Tracking, Talking with people, organizing people (glorified babysitting)
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Manage changing requirements
Coordinate design elements
Coordinate project teams
Oversee decisions
Coordinate Information
Gantt chart of activities
Keeping client up to date with progress
Oversees project teams
Keeps project on budget
Monitor progress of the project
8. What are the teams involved during systems design?
Oversight committee, hardware team, application software team, interface design team,
operating system team, Network Specialists, web support services team, database design
team, Project Management Team, Process Design Team, Project Support Team
End Users Evaluation Group, Integration Team, Support Team, Development teams,
Change management teams.
9. How do the teams collaborate?
Meetings, group discussions (explore options), email, phone, shared network drives,
inter-office documents/memos.
Email, Telephone, NetMeeting, Fax, Instant Messaging, Face-to-face Meeting, Carrier
Pigeon, Telepathy
Meetings, email, interviews, Project Managers, reports, presentations
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Weekly/daily meetings, Database and design teams will work together
Development and design will also work together
Conference calls
Code sharing
JAD
Common file sharing
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