Introduction
A. Project Overview
Project Scope: Shan Williams (Shan) is working as a hairstylist for more than 10 years. She always wanted to establish her own salon. She has purchased an older home last year and she has reestablished this home to make it a salon. Four other business stylists are working in her salon. Two of these stylists are working under the “booth rental” business model while the other two are working on an agreement with Shan. Shan gets a proportion of the income of these two stylists. Shan gets the flat fee from the stylists who are working under the “booth rental” business model. All the products are provided by Shan to its employees and all the receipts are kept by Shan. All the expenses are covered by the rental agreements. The calls are taken by the first desk to take care of the appointments of these employees. The scope of this project is to record all the transactions of the businesses. Different kinds of transactions involve revenue, expenses, overhead, etc. All of these transactions of the business will be recorded by this transaction processing system. The manual system of recording transactions and taking care of all the receipts is inefficient and ineffective. Installing a transaction processing system will make the processes efficient and effective.
Feasibility: A transaction processing system (or TPS) is a kind of information processing system. This system processes different kinds of transactions of business involving collection, retrieval, and modification of information. This system is feasible to be installed at Shan’s Salon. Different kinds of transactions are involved in her business and the level of complexity of some of the transactions is very high. Installing a transaction processing system in this business will resolve several issues of this business.
Justification: Shan is a stylist. She has just established a salon in which she has four stylists other than herself. Two of them share a proportion of their income with Shan directly on receipts while the other two are working on the agreement under the “booth rental” business model. The expenses are to be covered under the rental agreement while all the products are provided to employees by Shan. Some of the transactions are very complex and the manual system of dealing with the transactions is inefficient and ineffective. The proposal for installing a transaction processing system is justified based on the need for this system in Shan’s Salon.
Resource Requirement: Following are the resources required for this project:
- A project team
- A desktop computer for installing TPS
- A TPS software
- A TPS operator
Schedule: The project will take 12 weeks to complete installation in Shan’s Salon and start operating.
Statement of Problem: Shan has expanded her business and she has four other stylists in addition to herself. Several different kinds of transactions are involved in her business. She has to keep receipts of all the transactions. The handling of all the receipts is an ineffective and inefficient process. The business is facing problems due to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of manual transaction processing.
Environment: The environment in which the system is to be implemented is a small-scale salon. Different kinds of transactions are involved in this system and the owner of the business has to take care of all the receipts to process all the transactions.
Constraints: The business faces two kinds of constraints in installing a transaction processing system. Following are the major constraints:
- The constraint of resources: A TPS is to be installed in a small salon that is growing and has just started to expand its operations. The business has very few financial resources which is a major constraint in installing such a system.
- The constraint of time: The business is operating without a transaction processing system for about a year. The business needs this system as soon as possible to make its growing operations more effective and efficient.
B. Recommendations
- The company should hire a project team which should be expert in dealing in such project.
- The company should purchase a registered version of TPS.
- The company should hire a data operator to operate TPS and record all transactions.
- The company should provide its employees with the necessary training to operate this system.
2.0 System Description
A. Alternatives
Following are the alternative system configurations:
- The business should hire an accountant to handle all the receipts and taking care of all the transactions of the business. The business will not need any transaction processing system in the presence of an accountant. A disadvantage of keeping an accountant is that there remains a chance of error. Also, humans are much inefficient and ineffective as compared to machines.
- The business should install a transaction processing system (TPS) which is a much more effective system as compared to humans. This system is efficient as well as effective. There is no need of keeping all the receipts and this system can handle all kinds of transactions.
B. System Description
The second alternative is selected based on the superiority of this system over the first one. A transaction processing system records all the transactions performed by the business. The input information will be taken from the employees of the business. The transactions will be performed by the employees and recorded by the data operator. TPS will perform the necessary analysis and generate the output information. The output information will be in the form of process information regarding all the transactions. The output information can also take the form of different kinds of graphs and other information indicating the important trends. The resultant information can be used for several purposes which can be helpful for the business in many aspects.
3.0 Feasibility Assessment
A. Economic Analysis
Different kinds of costs involve the cost of hiring a project team for installing transaction processing systems, the hardware system, and transaction processing system software. All of these costs are fixed costs and need to be invested by the business only for one time. In addition to these costs, the business will have to hire a data operator to operate the system. The cost of hiring a data operator is much lower as compared to the cost of handling the receipts and dealing with the transactions manually. The cost-benefit analysis justifies installing a TPS in Shan’s Salon.
B. Technical Analysis
Installing a TPS in the business is a normal procedure for most retail businesses. Most of the retail and transaction processing software is stable. The software product is installed by the project team is a comparatively easier process. The technical analysis suggests minimal business risk associated with this project. The risk associated with this project is rated as “low”.
C. Operational Analysis
As mentioned above, the business does not have any transaction processing system in operation. The transactions are performed by Shan and receipts are kept by her. She provides all the products to the employees. Therefore, a record of all the transactions is kept by Shan. The manual handling of receipts and dealing with the transactions manually is an inefficient and ineffective process. TPS will resolve all such issues and the business will operate more efficiently and effectively.
D. Legal and Contractual Analysis
Copyright issues are associated with this project but this issue will be resolved by the business. The business will buy a registered product (A TPS system) on contract. The product will be used by the business on a one-year contract.
E. Political Analysis
The stakeholders of the business highly value such a system because this system will resolve the major issues of the business. An automated system will allow them to operate more efficiently and effectively. The stakeholders will support such a system specifically, Shan, who is currently acting as an accountant with the burden of all the transactions on her shoulders.
F. Schedules, Timeline, and Resource Analysis
The project will take approximately 12 weeks to be completed. The timeline of the project is mentioned in Table 1. The resource requirements for this project have been mentioned above. The project requires a project team, a hardware computer, a TPS product for the installment of the project. Also, the business will require a data operator to operate the system and input all the transaction data in the system.
Table 1
4.0 Managing Issues
A. Team Configuration and Management
The project will consist of three members. One of them will be a team leader. The role of the project team leader will be to influence the team members and steer them to achieve the project objectives. The two team members will start the project by writing the project charter, meeting all the requirements, and completing the project objectives.
B. Communication Plan
The project management team will write a project charter to determine all the requirements of the project before starting the project. This project charter will contain all the specifications which will act as a communication plan as well. All the specifications will be communicated to the project management team members, management, and the customers.
C. Project Standard and Procedures
The deliverable of this project will be installing a TPS in Shan’s Salon. The objective is to achieve an effective and efficient transaction processing system. The deliverables will be assessed on the quality of the achieved objectives. A successfully installed and efficiently working TPS is the standard of this project.
References
Crawford, J. K. (2014). Project management maturity model. CRC Press.
Sousa, K. J., & Oz, E. (2014). Management information systems. Nelson Education.
Su, G., & Iyengar, A. (2012). A highly available transaction processing system with non-disruptive failure handling. IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium (pp. 409-416). IEEE.
