Systems Analysis project

Personal Trainer, Inc. owns and operates fitness centers in a dozen Midwestern cities. The centers have done well, and the company is planning an international expansion by opening a new "supercenter" in the Toronto area. Personal Trainer's president, Cassia Umi, hired an IT consultant, Susan Park, to help develop an information system for the new facility. During the project, Susan will work closely with Gray Lewis, who will manage the new operation.

Background

Susan Park has completed a preliminary investigation and performed the fact-finding tasks that were described in Chapters 2 and 4. Now, she will use the results to develop a logical model of the proposed information system

info from chapter 2:

Continuing Case: Personal Trainer, Inc. Personal Trainer, Inc. owns and operates fitness centers in a dozen Midwestern cities. The centers have done well, and the company is planning an international expansion by opening a new "supercenter" in the Toronto area.

Personal Trainer's president, Cassia Umi, hired an IT consultant, Susan Park, to help develop an information system for the new facility. During the project, Susan will work closely with Gray Lewis, who will manage the new operation.

Background At their initial meeting, Susan and Gray discussed some initial steps in planning an information system for the new facility. The next morning, they worked together on a business profile, drew an organization chart, discussed feasibility issues, and talked about various types of information systems that would provide the best support for the supercenter's operations.

Their main objective was to carry out a preliminary investigation of the new system and report their recommendations to Personal Trainer's top managers. After the working session with Gray, Susan returned to her office and reviewed her notes. She knew that Personal Trainer's president, Cassia Umi, wanted the supercenter to become a model for the company's future growth, but she did not remember any mention of an overall strategic plan for the company.

Susan also wondered whether the firm had done a SWOT analysis or analyzed the internal and external factors that might affect an information system for the supercenter. Because the new operation would be so important to the company, Susan believed that Personal Trainer should consider an enterprise resource planning strategy that could provide a company-wide framework for information management. After she finished compiling her notes, Susan listed several topics that might need more study and called Gray to arrange another meeting the following day.

info from chapter 4:

• A typical center has 300-500 members, with two membership levels: full and limited. Full members have access to all activities. Limited members are restricted to activities they have selected, but they can participate in other activities by paying a usage fee. All members have charge privileges. Charges for merchandise and services are recorded on a charge slip, which is signed by the member.

• At the end of each day, cash sales and charges are entered into the BumbleBee accounting software, which runs on a computer workstation at each location. Daily cash receipts are deposited in a local bank and credited to the corporate Personal Trainer account. The BumbleBee program produces a daily activity report with a listing of all sales transactions.

• At the end of the month, the local manager uses BumbleBee to transmit an accounts receivable summary to the Personal Trainer headquarters in Chicago, where member statements are prepared and mailed. Members mail their payments to the Personal Trainer headquarters, where the payment is applied to the member account.

• The BumbleBee program stores basic member information, but does not include information about member preferences, activities, and history.

• Currently, the BumbleBee program produces one local report (the daily activity report) and three reports that are prepared at the headquarters location: a monthly member sales report, an exception report for inactive members and late payers, and a quarterly profitand-loss report that shows a breakdown of revenue and costs for each separate activity. During the interviews, Susan received a number of "wish list" comments from managers and staff members.

For example, managers want more analytical features so they can spot trends and launch special promotions and temporary discounts. Managers also want better information about the profitability of specific business activities at their centers, instead of bottom-line totals.

Several managers want to offer computerized activity and wellness logs, fitness coaching for seniors, and various social networking options, including e-mail communications, fitness blogs, Facebook, and Twitter posts. Staff members want better ways to handle information about part-time instructors and trainers, and several people suggested using scannable ID cards to capture data

Tasks:

1. Prepare a context diagram for the new system.

2. Prepare a diagram 0 DFD for the new system.

3. Write a brief memo that explains at least five attributes that you can use to define a process in the order system.

4. Write a brief memo that explains at least five attributes that you can use to define an entity in the order system.