Technical Paper Assignment: Project Plan

Especially for You Jewelers is a small jewelry company in a college town. Over the last couple of years, it has experienced a tremendous increase in its business. However, its financial performance has not kept pace with its growth. The current system, which is partly manual and partly automated, doesn't track accounts receivables sufficiently, and the company is finding it difficult to determine the reasons why the receivables are so high. The company runs frequent specials to attract customers but has no idea whether these efforts are profitable or if the benefit-if there is one-comes from associated sales. Especially for You Jewelers wants to increase repeat sales to its existing customers; thus, it needs to develop a customer database. It also wants to install a new direct sales and accounting system to help solve the outlined problems.

The new direct sales and accounting system for Especially for You Jewelers will be an important element in the growth and success of the jewelry company. The direct sales portion must track every sale, be able to link to the inventory system for cost data, and provide a daily profit and loss report. The customer database must be able to produce purchase histories to assist management in preparing special mailings and special sales to existing customers. Detailed credit balances and aged accounts for each customer would help to solve the problem with the high balance of accounts receivables. Special notice letters and credit history reports would help management reduce accounts receivable.

Write a six to eight page paper in which you:

1. Suggest at least five expected business benefits that Especially for You Jewelers company might derive from a new system. Provide a rationale for your suggestions.

2. Propose at least five system capabilities for the company. Provide a rationale for your proposals.

3. Ascertain the three possible scenarios in this new direct sales and accounting system.

4. Using Microsoft Visio or an open source alternative such as Dia, develop an activity diagram for each scenario that you have identified. Note: The graphically depicted solution may not exceed one page per diagram. Provide a narrative that gives an overview of your diagram.

5. Using Microsoft Visio or an open source alternative such as Dia, complete a fully-developed use case description for each scenario identified. Note: The graphically depicted solution may not exceed one page per diagram.

6. Develop a system vision document for Especially for You Jewelers, detailing the overall vision or plan for the new direct sales and accounting system. A vision document generally contains:

1. Introduction
2. Business needs / requirements
3. Product / solution overview
4. Major features
5. Scope and limitations
6. Other needs

7. Use at least three quality resources outside of the suggested resources in this assignment.Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Analyze techniques for requirements determination, collection, and organization.

• Summarize effective communication techniques with various organizational stakeholders to collect information using a variety of techniques and to convey proposed solution characteristics to them.

• Analyze and present methods to initiate, specify, and prioritize information systems projects and determine various aspects of feasibility of these projects.

• Develop a solution to proposed business problem using structured systems analysis and design methods.

• Use technology and information resources to research issues in advanced systems analysis and design.

• Write clearly and concisely about advanced systems analysis and design using proper writing mechanics and technical style conventions.