ICT 508 Information Technology Project Management

XYZ Car Parks have various parks in the city in order to provide the ease of parking facility to the customers. The number of customers has increased with the passage of time and it is now required for XYZ to come up with an automated control system. The document focuses upon the design along with the architectural requirements of the system for XYZ Car Park.

Functional Requirements

• Two types of customers as ordinary and seasonal customers shall be set up
• Season ticket holders shall be allowed to avail tickets in an advance period of three, six or twelve months
• 10% of the space of the car park shall be reserved for season ticket holders in the weekdays
• 10% reservation rule shall not apply during the weekends (Brandenburg, 2016)

Entry in to the Car Park

• ‘Press Button’ shall be the message that shall display once the vehicle is sensed
• A period of five seconds shall be spent in obtaining the tickets by ordinary customers and the message shall change to ‘Take Ticket’
• When the entire space in the car park is occupied, ‘Full’ shall be the message displayed which shall change to ‘Press Button’ as soon as a vacancy is created
• Validity check shall be performed on the ticket of season ticket holder and barrier shall rise if the test is passed successfully
• A bar code shall be present on the tick of ordinary customer
• Number of vehicles in the system shall be incremented by one with each vehicle entry in the car park (Smartba, 2016)

 Payment

• Initiation of payment shall be proceeded by detection of bar code on the ticket 
• A validation check for matching of information on the bar code and the system shall be performed 
• Mismatch shall be notified to the customer through message on LCD display which shall be reviewed and processed by the attendant 
• Payment amount shall be showed up on the LCD display if the match is found
• Information regarding unavailability of change shall be showed up on LCD display and customer shall be allowed to insert required notes and coins
• Balance shall change to zero once payment is done with the details printed on the ticket that shall be ejected
• Obtaining of receipt shall be optional and shall be provided if the customer wishes for the same (Onedesk, 2016)

Leaving the Car Park

• ‘Insert Ticket’ shall be the message when the vehicle approaches the exit gates 
• Duration of fifteen minutes shall be spent between obtaining the ticket and exiting from the car park  
• Barrier shall rise if the duration is less than 15 minutes and shall be remotely date in case it exceeds
• Number of vehicles shall be decremented by one when an exit is made
• Exit without visiting pay station shall be provided to the season customers (Ifla, 2016)

Security Visit Recording

• Information of security guards shall be recorded by capturing their entry and exit timing
• Rules that apply to the season ticket holders shall apply on the security guards (Requirementsnetwork, 2016)

Fault Recording

• Recording of the faults shall be done with time and date 
• Maintenance Company shall be immediately informed in case there is a fault in the equipment
• City administration shall be notified in case of other faults (Patton, 2016)

Security SLA

• Reporting on the security guards and their duty timings shall be available from the system

Season Tickets

• Maintenance Company shall be provided with the cards for the security guards having same rules applicable as that of the season ticket holders
• Renewal alert shall be generated two weeks prior to the expiry of the card
• Expiry date shall be updated once renewal is successful 

Non Functional Requirements

• One of the essential non-functional requirements that shall be included in the system shall be the system availability to allow the customer and all the end users to access the system at any time
• Usability shall also be included in the system as one of the non-functional requirements to obtain good user experience and feedback
• One of the essential non-functional requirements that shall be included in the system shall be the system scalability to alter the system parameters as per the need
• Performance shall also be included in the system as one of the non-functional requirements to ensure minimum response time and maximum user satisfaction
• One of the essential non-functional requirements that shall be included in the system shall be the system reliability to gain customer trust and provide valid information  
• Affordability shall also be included in the system as one of the non-functional requirements (Loewy, 2016)
• One of the essential non-functional requirements that shall be included in the system shall be the system recoverability to ensure minimum downtime
• Maintainability shall also be included in the system as one of the non-functional requirements to ensure ease of maintenance

Role of Use Cases

Use cases will have a significant role in case of the system to be designed for XYZ car park as they would allow the system designers and experts to understand the behavior of each of the system component. There are several components that are involved with the control system of XYZ car park such as operational and management system which would involve many actors and activities. Use cases would allow convenience in understanding of the pre-conditions, post conditions, basic and alternative flow along with the level of complexity that would be involved (Gomaa & Olimpiew, 2016). 

• Database Management System

MySQL would the database engine that would be apt for XYZ car parks as it would allow the database to be easily synced with the front end and also the data related operations and its storage would become easy and secure

• Environment

There will be three environments that would be required to be set up and provided to the project resources engaged with the control system of XYZ car park. The three environments would be development, test and production environment. 

• Navigation

Design of the control system shall be done in such a manner that there is a smooth and easy navigation ensured in the system. Also, it shall be made sure that there are no broken links in the system which would count as a major defect if encountered. 

• Layout and themes

The layout of the system that shall be designed for XYZ car park shall be kept simple and self explanatory without the involvement of over-use of the elements. Also, the theme shall be kept simple (Stanford, 2016). 

• Software Methods

Agile methodology shall be used during the development activities so that the benefits that are associated with agile in terms of flexibility, scalability, enhanced quality and customer involvement are associated with the project as well (Szalvay, 2016).

Problem Description

There are a number of problems that are associated with the existing system at the XYZ car parks which are as listed below (Legunsen, 2016).

• Inability to handle the huge number of customers leading to performance issues
• There are a number of problems that are associated with the information management and storage in the current system in terms of data handling and operations
• Customer satisfaction levels are coming down with the issues in the system
• The business objectives and aims that are set up for the car parks are becoming difficult to achieve due to operational and managerial issues

System Capabilities

The capabilities that will be offered to the XYZ car park with the development of the control system are as listed below.

• There will be involvement and presence of automated control activities in the following areas
  • Automated operational system with following components
    • Entry to the car park
    • Payment processing
    • Exit from the car park
    • Security visit recording
  • Automated managerial activities in the following areas
    • Fault Recording
    • Security SLA
    • Season Tickets

Along with the functional capabilities that have been listed above, there will also be a number of system qualities that will be associated with the system in terms of usability, affordability, recoverability, reliability, maintenance and many more that would allow the system and the car parks to gain customer trust and engagement.

System Benefits

There will also be several advantages that will be offered by the design and development of the control system for XYZ car parks.

• The overall management of the activities associated with the car park in terms of operations and management would be streamlined
• There are a lot many car parks in the city that are competing with each other to gain a stronger reputation and customer base in the market. Use and adaptation of automated control system would ensure that XYZ gains a competitive edge in the market  
• With the streamlining of operations, the customers will be provided with better quality services which will lead to positive feedback and customer engagement as well
• The number of frauds in terms of information handling and loss and leakage of information will also be avoided 

Conclusion

XYZ Car Parks have ten car parks in the city and the management has decided to implement automated control system in the car parks so that the operational and management activities can be streamlined and higher amount of customer trust and engagement may be achieved. Design of the control system shall be done in such a manner that there is a smooth and easy navigation ensured in the system. Also, it shall be made sure that there are no broken links in the system which would count as a major defect if encountered. The layout of the system that shall be designed for XYZ car park shall be kept simple and self explanatory without the involvement of over-use of the elements. Also, the theme shall be kept simple. Agile methodology shall be used during the development activities so that the benefits that are associated with agile in terms of flexibility, scalability, and enhanced quality and customer involvement are associated with the project as well. There will be a number of system qualities that will be associated with the system in terms of usability, affordability, recoverability, reliability, maintenance and many more that would allow the system and the car parks to gain customer trust and engagement.

References

Brandenburg, L. (2016). What Goes Into a Functional Specification?. Bridging-the-gap.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/functional-specification/

Gomaa, H. & Olimpiew, E. (2016). The Role of Use Cases in Requirements and Analysis Modeling. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.ie.inf.uc3m.es/wuscam-05/5-WUsCaM.pdf

Ibm,. (2016). IBM Knowledge Center. Ibm.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSYMRC_4.0.5/com.ibm.rational.rrm.help.doc/topics/r_vision_doc.html

Ifla,. (2016). IFLA -- Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records. Ifla.org. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records

Legunsen, O. (2016). Vision Document. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from https://www.utdallas.edu/~chung/RE/Presentations10F/Team-hope/1%20-%20VisionDoc.pdf

Legunsen, O. & Lindee, C. (2016). Vision Document. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from https://www.utdallas.edu/~chung/RE/Presentations10F/Team-hope/1%20-%20VisionDoc.pdf

Loewy, R. (2016). Nonfunctional Requirements – Scaled Agile Framework. Scaledagileframework.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.scaledagileframework.com/nonfunctional-requirements/

Onedesk,. (2016). Functional Requirements vs Non Functional Requirements – OneDesk. Onedesk.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.onedesk.com/functional-requirements-vs-non-functional-requirements/

Patton,. (2016). IFLA -- Functional Requirements for Authority Data – A Conceptual Model. Ifla.org. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.ifla.org/publications/ifla-series-on-bibliographic-control-34

Requirementsnetwork,. (2016). Business Requirements vs Functional Requirements from RequirementsNetwork.com. Requirementsnetwork.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.requirementsnetwork.com/business-functional.htm

Smartba,. (2016). Functional Requirements. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.smart-ba.com/download/Module%203.pdf

Stanford,. (2016). Website Redesign Proposal. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://web.stanford.edu/~eadolfo/cis-redesign/attachments/proposal-newsignature.pdf

Szalvay, V. (2016). An Introduction to Agile Software Development. Retrieved 30 April 2017, from http://www.danube.com/docs/Intro_to_Agile.pdf.