Remote Business Monitoring System

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Student Name

Institution

Introduction

Riordan Manufacturing is believed to be a highly advanced company that majors in plastic materials based in San Jose, California. The idea of the company was started by a chemist and a professor Dr. Riordan in 1991. The industry majorly deals with plastic beverage containers, custom plastic parts and also plastic fan parts. The company’s main customers are from different backgrounds; these includes automotive parts manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, beverage makers and more importantly in the appliance manufacturers.

The company has many branches situated in different geographical areas and dealing in different plastic products. The best way to monitor the flow of the business is by use of the technology which has emanated as a vital device in controlling business in the current world. Due to the fact that they are located in different geographical positions, it would be of great importance to the business owner to use the remote business monitoring system which enables the owner to monitor and have full control of the transactions taking place at a given locations and also indicates the available stocks in reference to the raw materials being used.

Systematically organized and managed business processes often leads to a well profitable, smooth running and open accounted for business or organization’s processes. It also provides a great deal in providing better and reliable services to business customers with an improved relationship between the employee and the employer. Remote business monitoring system is a platform that allows a business owner to keep track of his business(s) regardless of their geographical location. 

It combines data sets from different business points and gives a more comprehensive business reports regarding sales and expenses recorded at a specific point within a given time. The platform uses information such as the sales and expenses recorded from the business then uses simulation techniques to take care of the data manipulation and provide human readable and top notch data reports for easy decision making displayed in two formats. That is, plain and graphs/charts.

It is therefore a Business Activity Monitoring software/ platform as well as a Management Information System that acts as a middleware between the business and the owner that aids in monitoring of business activities, as those activities/ processes happen on the business sites at real time. The owner can be able to view the kind of transaction taking place at any given time.

The platform allows the Riordan Manufacturing Company/the manager to:

Access both real time and on demand business insights from all business points in one location without having to travel across the world since the locations of the premise I in different locations and more so in different continents.

Business operations comparison. Compare sales and expenses to get the profit/ loss margin within any date range from any business point. This will help the Riordan Company to manage its operations and detect factors that leads to loses and factors that enable it achieve the maximum profit within a particular time.

Manage stock at all the business points from a single location. In any business or factory, the most important item is the stock that enables the smooth flow of the business. The stock can include the raw materials and the factory output that can be finally be sold to the outside world. This will be an immense improvement to the Riordan factory in terms of managing it’s to stocks.

A messaging feature that allows communication between the business owner and the employees. Though the business is in different locations, the Riordan management will still be in a position to get the information via text messages as a means of communications between the owner and the employees. This will enable the Company management to get first hand complains from the employees and look for the possible remedies.

Being a promising field, there has been a need to provide business monitoring services to the business owners irrespective of the geographical location. The software with its user friendly and simple user interface will come in handy to provide real time business updates and advice the Riordan manufacturing on the possible solutions and to whether the business is operating at a loss or profit and make the necessary steps in order to rectify the possible problems realized.

The system will enable the interconnections of various departments’ right from the employees to the administrations in their daily operations without any unnecessary conflict between various related departments. The remote business monitoring system is outlined in a hierarchical order which in line with the operation of the company and also in supportive with each department.

The system is integrated into one though it has some of its components depending with the department concerned. For example, for the executive body, the extension in the system is the executive support management system. It helps the top management to make vital decisions, coming up with the strategy plan for the company irrespective of their geographical location. The top brass can be able to collect information concerning the operation of the business, analyze and also make a summary of the information collected both internally and external concerning the business operation. This body is vital in Riordan Company and its management and acts as analyzing center for the information with modeling of analysis queries (Barker, 2004).

Another important system element is the management information system, which is embedded on the main system, Remote Business Monitoring System. This helps the management in the collections of information within the company. The system has the capability of taking the information from the system that process the various transactions from different branches and then makes the summaries of the information into the system reports. The system is also able to generate report which is vital for the company in realizing the feasibility of the business, whether the business is running on a loss or at a profit.

The reports got from the management information system are used by the supervisors in the factory and the middle group in the department of the management of the Riordan Manufacturing Company. These will help the company in managing their stocks and analyzing the stock flow and also viewing the reports and tackling the challenges facing the company. The system can enable the employees to post their grievances to the management and can be able to get immediate responses.

More importantly, another embedded system is the one capable of managing flow of transaction. This is the transaction management system; it is capable of managing daily transaction within the company and then generates the report to the managements. The purpose of this extension in the system is to enable the Riordan Manufacturing Company to manage the transactions accurately and in an efficient manner without any error which could have been realized due to human typing. The system is also capable of controlling the stock, billing and also the act of purchasing new assets.

The system requires some specifications for its operations. Installing it does not require more attention and is less expensive. The resources are as follows:

A Computer set: Pentium IV with the following minimum hardware specifications:

10GB hard drive

256MB Main Memory (RAM)

1.8GHz Processor speed

The necessary software specifications for the system are as follows:

Netbeans 6.0/ Eclipse /JCreator or any other Java IDE

Java SDK (Software Development Kit)

Android SDK (Software Development Kit)

Notepad++ 5.7 and above

Macromedia Fireworks 8.0 –for graphics development

jQuery.js, highcharts.js, kScrit.js – javascript frameworks

Xampp – latest version with php 5.3.8 or above

Web browser – Internet Explorer 6 and higher, Mozilla 10.0.2, Google Chrome

Windows XP sp1 and above, windows 7 any edition, windows vista, linux

Microsoft Word 2003, 2007 or 2010 version

Internet Connection necessary for unlimited communication

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

A system requirement defines the system needs from the user’s point of view and the system implementations requirements.

It’s divided into two categories:

Functional Requirements

Non-Functional requirements

FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS

Functional requirements are associated with specific functions, tasks or behaviors the system must support in order to help Riordan company in achieving their desired goals as stipulated in their strategic plan.

The following is a list of Remote business monitoring system functional requirements:

#

Requirement

Brief description

1

Register new user

The system should allow the administrator to register new system users

2

Update profile information

The system should allow its users to update their profile information

3

View profile information

The system should be capable of allowing users to view their profile information

4

View products

The system should allow employees, business owners and the administrator to view all their products and specific product information

6

Update products data

The system should enable the administrator, business owner or the employee with the update rights to modify products information.

7

Delete products

Administrator, business owner and employee should be able to delete various products from the system

8

Add new products

The system should both the admin and the business owner add new products

9

Add new sales

The system should allow employees and the business owner to record new product sales

10

View sales

The system should allow users to view sale statistics as they are recorded

11

Modify sales information

Editing of the recorded sales should be allowed by the system

12

Record expenses

The system should allow employees to record expenses as they are incurred

14

View expenses

The system should allow users to view expenses statistics as they are recorded

15

Modify expenses information

The system should be capable of allowing editing of the recorded expenses

16

View reports

Business owner, administrator should be capable to view business processes reports on demand.

17

Share reports

The system should allow business owner to share reports with other employees, send via email, download pdfs, social websites data sharing

18

Send Messages

All the system users should be able to send messages via email, sms

19

View send messages

System users should be in a position to get their messaging history

20

Download reports

Generated reports should be exported as pdfs for download

21

Login

System users must be able to login to the system for better interaction

22

Manage users

The system should allow the administrator to manage system users

23

Manage user rights

System administrator should be able to edit users rights

24

View transaction log

Each user should be in a position to view his/her system transactions history

25

Search products

During sales recording, the user should be able to search for products from the data store

NON- FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS

Non-functional requirements are constraints on various attributes of system functions or tasks

#

Requirement

Brief description

1

System usability

The system should be easy to use and interact with

The system must provide user friendly information and in user friendly way to the user

The system should provide easy to figure out navigational links

2

System performance/ Efficiency

The system information processing speed should be as fast as the click of button

Each task should be optimized to operate at the relatively the same high speed

Processing of reports and graph generation should be fast

3

Availability

The system should be available to all employees, administration’s, business owners

System data should be available to the specific user on demand

4

Security

Each user should have a unique ID or username and password in order to login to the system

5

Notifications

The system be able to provide notifications about products stock levels, new messages

Mobile Applications

The system can also be used in smart phones since it can also be supported in android like phones. A mobile application (or mobile app) is a software application designed to run on Smartphone’s, tablet computers and other mobile devices. They are available through application distribution platforms, which are typically operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Marketplace and BlackBerry App World. This will enable the Riordan company, especially the management to be able to monitor their business by use of a phone, simply by login in the system as an administrator and then access the details of the transaction and also be able to view the complains of the employee via the emails and also by use of text messages.

The mobile application of the system will be of great importance to the system, since it would be more secure as compared to the desktop based. This is because it is only accessible by the owner of the phone. The login in credentials is also secure in that the owner is the one in control of the details. The Riordan management could also be able to monitor the stock via the smart phone in a particular location of the company simply by accessing the stock menu. He or she will be able to tell whether the business is running on a loss or making some profit.

Flow Diagram for the system

Target system users meet with the system analysts and develop models and prototypes that actually represent all the system processes, inputs and outputs.

This is an iterative process until the user is satisfied with the prototype system

Focuses on program and application development task similar to the SDLC, however users have control over the system developed

Addresses the business needs, scope, constraints and the system requirementsThis method of software development involves both techniques of iterative development and software prototyping

This is the final phase which involves data conversions, testing, changeover to the new system and user training

The steps followed using this methodology includes:

User requirements gathering and planning – this involves development of preliminary data models and business process models using structured techniques.

Requirements verification through development of prototypes, eventually to refine the data and process models.

The data which is used in Remote business monitoring system is divided into several sections

Users information

Stores all the details regarding users including login credentials and accessibility categories

Point of Sale information

Contains all the data for the point of sale management. This comprises of the table to hold the list of products on sale, sales table, expenses table

Application settings information

This is the application configurations table including the business name.