Question

Systems Analysis

Read the following scenario and answer the questions below.

A company hires out property renovation equipment (for example floor sanders, polishing machines, paint sprayers, sandblasters, scaffolding, etc.) to customers. Traditionally, they have used paper based records, but now they want customers to be able to rent out equipment online, or in person from the reception desk. When dealing with a booking, or allocating an available item to a customer, the new system needs to check whether the customer has previously hired equipment from the company, or is a new customer. New customer details must be recorded. Otherwise, the system must retrieve the existing customer's record. Existing customers may change their personal and account details at any time. The minimum period of hire is one day and all transactions are for a number of whole days. The maximum hire period is one month. Checkout of a piece of equipment needs to be recorded at the start of a hire. Two forms of proof are needed before equipment can be taken away for use. One of these must include the customer’s address (e.g. a utility bill). Return of the equipment also needs to be recorded by the system. Upon return, the shop staff need to check that the equipment is undamaged. If equipment is damaged this needs to be recorded on the customer’s bill and an appropriate charge for repair needs to be made. Payments can be made by card or PayPal online, or in cash at the shop. The system needs to keep track of what equipment is currently out for hire, so that no double booking takes place. If a piece of equipment is on-hire, then the system needs to show when the item will be Page 2 of 2 returned and allow advance reservations of that equipment. Customers of the hire company include builders and laborers who are not particularly IT savvy. Thus, the system needs to be straightforward and easy to use. The company expects somewhere in the region of a thousand customers to begin with. But, they hope to enlarge their customer base to ten thousand within five years of going online. There is a total budget of £30,000 for the system build.

1. What are functional and non-functional requirements and constraints for the proposed system?

2. Are there any functional or non-functional requirements that you think should be included, but that have not been explicitly stated in the problem?

3. Draw a flowchart which shows a typical reservation scenario. Use Microsoft Visio or similar for your drawing. Refer to the following tutorial on how to draw an effective flowchart.

Answer 1

Functional Requirement: It says what the system should do.

• The system should check whether the customer is an old one or a new one
• New customer details should be recorded
• Existing customer details should be available
• Existing customer hiring list should be available
• New customer address should be provided
• Customer bill should be paid by card or online with Paypal or cash in the shop
• The hired equipment list is noted
• The customer can have the hired equipment for a month maximum and one-day minimum

Non-functional Requirement: It is said to be the constraints on the functionality of the software system

• Two flexible customer's personal proof address should be provided
• Equipment damage should be noted by a person in charge
• Payment done for the damaged equipment should be done at the shop

Start Old New customer customer Check avaliable address information yes Get address Get proof of utility bill proof Any hired equipment still ot returne Choose the required equipment No No equipment provided Ye Check avaliability Yes No Out of delivery Payment Cash or delivery Card Online Paypal