Kudler Fine Foods Root Cause Analysis

Service Request SR-kf-013

Reginald Widgeon, Samuel Smothers, Shiloh Pogue, Qulana Johnson

BSA375

January 25, 2012

Timothy Thacker

Determination of Requirements

In the Service Request for Kudler Fine Foods it is important to know the determination requirements of the project. The analyst need to identify the specific analysis methods used to determine user needs. The objective of a Service Request is to develop a new system for Kudler to track customer purchases through a Frequent Shopper Program to redeem loyalty points. To meet the goal for the Service Request analyst need to identify the specific analysis methods used to determine user needs. The basic process of analysis involves three steps: * Business Process Automation
– understanding the existing situation * Business Process Improvements – identify the improvements * Business Process Reengineering – define the requirements The First step, Business Process Automation is geared toward knowing the as-is situation of the current system.
First the analyst need to determine the current situation in Kudler “Problem Analysis”; right now the as-is issue is to increase more sales. How can we make the customer shop more in Kudler? After finding out the problem the next step is to find the nature of the problem “Root Cause Analysis” Root Cause Analysis focuses on the issue of the problem not the solution. The root causes in Kudler as a gourmet store is having perishable foods with a short shelf life. To avoid losing profit Kudler need to sell products that customer wants to buy. If the customers will buy more products it will increase the
profit. The Second step, Business Process Improvements is to identify how to improve more sales in Kudler. Through the implementation of the Frequent Shopper Program should help maximize the profit of Kudler. It will improve profit; customer based, and inventory system. The Third step, Business Process Reengineering. The current system customers come in purchase the product, pay the cashier, and leave. There is no sense of gratification on the product purchased. Kudler would like to provide a new system that will increase the sense of gratification on the items purchase and save customers some money as they increase their trips in the gourmet store. Mandatory Milestones A few mandatory milestones must be achieved for the project to be successful. Hardware and network infrastructure need to support the new system. The current POS station will be upgraded to collect the additional data the will be stored. That will only require a software update, we are not adding more functionality to the POS just the new info it will be requesting from the database. The network infrastructure will to be upgraded to be able to support a minimum of 100 megabits (Mbps) per seconds and the connection to the Internet needs to be upgraded to a business class DSL/Broadband or bonded T1’s for a total speed of 3Mbps.
The increase in bandwidth will ensure connectivity between the POS, severs, and databases. Several servers will be upgraded and built out. An application server must be built, it will house the application that will run the customer reward program. The app server will make calls to the database server and compile the information. A web server will be built to serve two purposes, house the Internet site and the internal intranet site. The Internet site will make calls to the app server and be the first thing that customers
see. Rebuilding the company website to support the e-commerce initiative will be essential to the new system. The e-commerce will require additional security measure to ensure the customer’s information is safe.

Optional Milestones Optional milestones are important but not required for the success of the project. The website would be notice more by new potential customer when some search engine optimization. New advertisements listed on business partners sites will bring new clientele and promote the new customer reward program. High-Level Logical Data Flow

Functional Allocation Modeling

In Kudler Fine Foods new proposed system the Frequent Shoppers Program will function based on the hardware, software, and human computer interface that will be incorporated in the project. In Kudler’s new proposed system, software is needed for balancing points, including the points on the customer receipt, recording the amount purchased by the customer. Software will also be used in the purchase transaction; including swiping of the frequent shopping cards in the system, and maintains the customer data. The hardware will play an important role in holding application needed for the Frequent Shopper Program. In order to accommodate the new application that is needed to run the newly developed Frequent Shopper program. The Human-Computer interface is a process where even though there’s a computer to automate the Frequent Shopper program, still need someone to push the button. No matter how sophisticated a computer system maybe, there’s still need a human interaction.

Data Flow Diagram – Proposed Process

Admin Updates
Kudler/ Company Database
POS/
Trans
Data
Point Redemption
System
Coupon/Receipt System
Purchase Tracking System
Inventory Tracking
Cust
Data

Cashier
Terminal
Barcode Scanning
Points Assessed
External Partners Database
Admin Updates
Kudler/ Company Database
POS/
Trans
Data
Point Redemption
System
Coupon/Receipt System
Purchase Tracking System
Inventory Tracking
Cust
Data

Cashier
Terminal
Barcode Scanning
Points Assessed
External Partners Database