MITS5002 Software Engineering Methodology

Note: The case study below may not provide all of the information necessary to complete the assignment. Students will have to use their personal experiences to complete some aspects of the assignment. Students may also seek clarification from their tutor during tutorials or office hours.

Sunshine Motors

“Sunshine Motors” is an older car dealership and the previous owner was slow to change. A new management team has taken over and have contracted you to develop a system for their service department which is going through a major expansion

Sunshine Motors has tasked your team to develop the requirements for their vehicle mechanical service company system. The system is to allow the company to record client information – their details (for example name, address, contact details), vehicle details (for example make, model, color, registration), and service history (for example service dates and odometer readings, details of the services performed separated into labour tasks and parts used, the mechanics involved). The system must also keep records of the mechanics employed by the company – their personal details, their qualifications and special licenses, time sheet information, emergency contact details, supervisor details.

The current system is a manual based system which has served the company well, but is now becoming outdated and causing bottlenecks due to the increased workload demand.

Description of the New System

The company has a pool of ten mechanics who are entitled to a rostered day off per fortnight and so the system must be able to produce a roster for the mechanics ensuring that there is always at least five mechanics working on a day and one mechanic available for emergency call in, in the event of illness or extra work demand. Mechanics can enter information into the system at any of ten terminals to be placed in the workshop area; front office staff can enter information at any of two terminals in the front office; and roadway staff can enter details at an outside terminal on arrival of the client with their vehicle.

Mechanics are assigned to a Work Bay for the day, but may move between work bays for different work orders. Sunshine Motors maintains 10 Work Bays within the workshop area, though there are plans to expand this if the company can purchase the vacant site next door and build expanded workshop facilities.

The company also provides loan cars to clients on request and so must keep information on when loan cars are available for clients and who has a loan car at any given time and for how long. Not all customers request loan cars, but when they book in a service they may request one, so the system needs to be able to respond with the details of when loan cars may be available.

Sunshine Motors needs to manage an inventory of common parts and consumables that the mechanics use for jobs. Mechanics decrement the inventory as they use parts and consumables. The purchasing officer for Sunshine Motors needs to be able to check inventory levels at any time and order additional stock (typically via email to a supplier as necessary). However, the purchasing officer should also receive a warning email if stock levels decrement below a threshold. The system should be able to handle up to 5000 part numbers (a consumable also has a part number) and the purchasing officer set the thresholds for the warning levels for each part as they require. A part or consumable has a name, a number, a supplier and a minimum order quantity.

When a Customer brings a car in for a service, they come to the counter where a Service writer prepares the Work Order. The Service Writer and the Customer arrange for a time for the work to be completed and then the customer signs the Work Order and leaves. The Work Orders are arranged within the system in order of expected completion times.

When a Mechanic is free, they access the system and get assigned to the next Work Order available in the system. As soon as a Mechanic is assigned a Work Order, they indicate the available Work Bay they will be using, the Work Bay is then booked for the expected duration of the service, and a notification is sent to a Service assistant who retrieves the vehicle and drives it to the assigned Work Bay. The Mechanic then begins work on the vehicle. The Work Order will contain a number of standard Work Items corresponding to the particular service being undertaken, along with any specific faults noted by the customer. As each Work Item is completed the Mechanic checks these off on the system, so the system can keep track of the progress of the Work Order in case the Customer rings for an update on expected completion time.

As the Mechanic is servicing the vehicle, new parts may be needed for a particular Work Item. The Mechanic will log these parts in the system against the Work Item, and the system will also check the Inventory Database for availability. If the part is in stock then the System will adjust the quantity of these parts in the Inventory database and a notification is sent to a Service assistant to retrieve the part and deliver it to the required Work Bay. If the part is not in stock, then a notice is sent to the Service Manager who will try and urgently get the part from a Supplier. If the part is unavailable then the Service Manager will notify the Customer about the delay and may have to arrange for a replacement car until the part arrives. The Service Manager will also notify the Mechanic who is servicing the vehicle of the outcome. This may require the Mechanic to be assigned to another Work Order until the Part arrives.

When a Mechanic finishes the items on the Work Order, this is entered into the System as complete. The Work Order is closed and a notification is sent to a Service Assistant who then retrieves the vehicle from the Work Bay, takes it to a Detailing Bay where it is washed and cleaned, then driven to parking bays to be picked up by the customer. When the vehicle is returned to the parking bays, the Service assistant enters this against the Work Order, and the Customer is notified that their vehicle is ready for collection. When the Work Order is closed, the Mechanic can then retrieve another Work Order from the System.

When the Work Order is closed, it is flagged as complete and the System automatically prepares an Invoice for the Work Order. The Invoice contains the standard costs for each of the Work Items, as well as the price of any new parts needed as the Work Items were being performed. It will additionally include labour costs. A total cost for the invoice is then generated and the Invoice is printed out.

A copy of the invoice is also sent to the accounts department.

Payment

When the Customer arrives to pick up their vehicle, they are given the Invoice which they can check, then payment is received and entered into the system against the Invoice. When an Invoice is fully paid, it is flagged as closed. In some cases, Sunshine Motors may allow an Invoice to be partly paid, in which case the Invoice remains Open until full payment is received. This may be for a term of up to seven days.

Some Customers (for example companies which maintain fleets of vehicles) have accounts with Sunshine Motors, and will receive a monthly statement through the post. These customers have longer terms, such as the end of the month in which the statement is issued.

When a customer payment is received, a copy of the payment is sent to the accounts department, where the payment is matched against the invoice and a receipt will be issued through the post, or via text message if the Customer has registered a mobile telephone number. Payment can be by cash, credit card or paypal.

Regular reports need to be generated to list those invoices over their due dates that have not been paid.

Issues

A number of issues have arisen that have prompted Sunshine Motors to contract you to look into the development of this new system.

• It is difficult to keep track of the Work Orders during the day and thus it is difficult to answer customer phone queries on the progress of their service
• Work orders were not collated till the end of the day, thus it was difficult to keep track of the consumption or inventory on a day to day basis
• Manual check had to be kept on inventory levels to make sure stock was available. If stock ran out this could be costly in terms of supplying the customer with replacement vehicles.
• As the number of customers has grown (and is expected to grow in future) it was sometimes difficult to keep track of the fleet or loan cars, and answer customer queries on when one would be available so they could book their
• Additionally, we need to keep better track io kilometers in our loan fleet so these can also be serviced in a timely
• Delays in sending paperwork to our suppliers can cause delays in inventory processing and result in longer delivery times of
• The level of paperwork is increasing and the accounts department is having trouble keeping up with the timely production of monthly statements, processing of payments and general financial
• With customers beginning to ask for different methods of payment such as email, PayPal etc, we need to look at incorporating this into our business processes somehow

Other Information

Sunshine Motors has a finance manager who must be able to extract information related to car services and bills paid (clients pay the front office staff on completion of a job) as well as invoices paid to suppliers, for parts ordered by the purchasing officer. The finance manager prefers to use Microsoft® Excel® and MYOB® for accounting activities.

Sunshine Motors has a marketing manager who needs to be able to set up mail out reminders to clients when their car might be coming due for a service and any special offers. The marketing manager would like to know if this could be incorporated into the new system.

There has been some consideration to giving mechanics a tablet computing device so that they can enter information more freely as they move around the workshop but there are concerns about the robustness of such devices (mechanics like to drop things) and the need for a local wireless area network – if possible this is desirable, but not mandatory.

Sunshine Motors needs an IT administrator to maintain the system, perform backups and set access permissions, for example.

The team, apart from the IT administrator, finance manager and marketing manager are generally fairly IT illiterate and so need very simple user interfaces.

Sunshine Motors has a client base of 300 clients but is hoping to grow this by 10%.