Implementation Of An Integrated Library System: Business Analysis And Customization

Question:

Discuss about the Integrated Library System.

The report is based on implementation of an integrated library system (ILS) which provides library’s business operations. The public library system is combined with vendor supported as well as customized system with the library’s original homegrown system. Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini (2015) stated that business analysis is detailed study of different operations that are performed by the business and its relationships in and outside of the system. During this analysis, data are collected on different files; decision points as well as transactions are to be handled by the existing library system.

This particular report analyses a facilitation of customization of ILS modules. It also discusses an abstract view of the activities that are performed into six core knowledge areas of the business analysis. It also evaluates competencies as well as tools that are used to conduct knowledge areas.

Plan business analysis approach

ILS system uses of library’s system development life cycle methodology for implementing and maintaining a higher quality system to meet customer’s expectations. Project management life cycle ensures that this project plan is within estimated resources, planned schedule as well as scope (Yeh and Walter 2016). The project manager analyzes the functional requirements of ILS system. It provides detailed specifications on system design. Into the development phase, design of ILS is converted into IT system. Testing is done to validate whether the developed system meets with business requirements.

Plan stakeholder engagement

Library Staff Members: The staff members are responsible to purchase as well as acquire of books, periodicals and movies. They have entered the information into the library system as well as established a unique barcode for each of the library items.  

Librarians: The roles of librarians are to provide access to the library information system. They are associated with collection of books and meet with technological requirements (Fleisher and Bensoussan 2015). They are also deal with maintenance of information such as books, magazines, recordings of audio and video, manuscripts and others.

Business Analyst: They have planned, monitored and simplified the business requirements to implement an integrated library system. The business analyst analyzes the requirements of the system into the public library.

Plan business analysis governance

In the governance structure, the business analyst plays a key significant role into implementation of library system. The analyst understands the customer drivers and business process requirements (Eva et al. 2014). They have in-depth knowledge on functioning of the proposed system. They have also validated the solutions developed and meet with client’s requirements

ILS System and the Library Staff Members, Librarians, and Business Analysts

Plan business analysis information management

Each of the patrons as well as items within the ILS has unique ID into the database that permits the system to track the activities. It helps to keep record of the entire library transactions of books available within the library (Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini 2015). Library information management system keeps records of various books, journals, classifies the books subject sensible and keeps detailed information on all books.

Identify business analysis performance improvements

Technical feasibility is done to identify if the ILS system is technically feasible or not. It is not difficult to get required resources for development as well as maintenance of the proposed system. The operational cost of the ILS system is less than current library system that includes of materials equipments, overhead cost as well as human resources (Vera-Baquero, Colomo-Palacios and Molloy 2016). Favorable hardware as well as software is utilized to make the proposed system feasible. 

The core competencies are administration and management work, trends into public librarianship, public services, collection development and technical services. The proposed system can also track the items owned, payment of bills and patrons those have borrowed. ILS system consists of relational database and software to interact with database plus graphical user interfaces.

Following are the tools used for development of ILS system are:

Business analysis performance assessment: It reviews the entire project plan and incorporates with planning approaches of the system.

Business process modeling: It represents sequential workflow of the informational decisions that are taken for business process (Fleisher and Bensoussan 2015).

Prepare for elicitation

The ILS system is updating the old library system in an internet based application such that the users can know detailed information about their library accounts, availability of books and maximum time to borrow it. This system is used for use of librarians and users. The system is used to manage books, insertion as well as monitoring (Loepp, Hussein and Ziegler 2014).

Conduct elicitation

By conducting the elicitation on ILS, it provides access to the detailed library records and repeated tracking of the information of borrowers. It also maintains supply stock information of the library items in the system to make sure that stock are not running out (Muhammad and Darwish 2014). It also updates the library with latest books, journals and newspapers. The goal of this proposed system is to facilitate administrative activities as well as information management works within the library.  

Technical Feasibility and Requirements of Stakeholders

Confirm elicitation results

It is validated the requirements of the stakeholders are matching with the updated system requirements. Document analysis is done to review the documented outputs with stakeholders to make sure that the business analyst’s understanding conforms towards actual desires of the stakeholders.

Communicate business analysis information

The communication platform to communicate all the business related information on system development is done through group and individual collaboration. In group collaboration, the information is communicated with group of business stakeholders at a time (Loepp, Hussein and Ziegler 2014). In individual collaboration, the information is communicated with single business stakeholders at a time. Email is also used to mail all the information to all stakeholders and there is no requirement of verbal explanation.

Manage stakeholder collaboration

In order to collaborate with the stakeholders, a good communication plan is required to interact with all the business stakeholders. Weekly meeting is conducted to discuss the business related issues (Muhammad and Darwish 2017). The discussion meeting can manage the conflicts among the project stakeholders.   

The responsibility of business analyst is elicitation of business requirements as those requirements would serve foundation for the solutions towards business needs (Konaté, Sahraoui and Kolfschoten 2014). The purpose of elicitation and collaboration is to identify business requirements and elicitation techniques used.

Brainstorming: It is a group creativity technique that provides final conclusion for the problems related to implementation of ILS (Chang, Harper and Terveen 2015).  

Document analysis: The library’s system requirement documents are reviewed by the business analyst. The documents are personal documents and public records (Fernández-Tobías et al. 2016).

The library system provides a good graphical interface for the users as well as administrator that are operating on the system. The external interface requirement of proposed system is that it allows the system users to view quick reports and verifies the stock verification based on various criteria (Stark 2015). The administrator can customizable the user interfaces. The user interface is able to communicate with the user management modules and the interface must dedicate to login as well as logout modules. After implementation of library management system, the librarian and system user can easily access the library. The system performs member registration, validation, generation of report and transaction of books. Usability requirement is required to verify if the staffs can easily use the system.  

Technological core competencies are used to address the growing requirements of the customers to raise their technical competence. It allows for utilization of library resources. The technology core competencies are checklist of system, training as well as assessment (Campbell, Jardine and McGlynn 2016).

Business analysis tools

Tools Used in the Development of ILS System

Decision analysis: This tool is used by the business analyst to make better decisions in difficult situations. It is used to recognize higher value requirements.

Backlog management: This tool compares the requirements to prioritize it. With use of this tool, the project manager customizes the software based on team’s requirements (Tao et al. 2014).   

Analyzing the current state

ILS is large enterprise software that is driving enterprise resource planning system. The current state of ILS is that the staffs can barcode the copies of single item such as copies of meticulous books at particular time with each of the copies receive sequentially numbered barcodes.  

Defining future state

The proposed ILS is implemented with a new process of handling the barcodes, various copies of same items. Acquisitions module of new ILS needs information for each innovative item to be penetrated separately (Finkbeiner 2014). It means that the information for the library's collected works would entered 12 time i.e. once for each copy of the book.

Assessing the risks

Loss of data storage devices: Due to damage of the hard disk, there is possible that the data are stored might be lost. The solution is that the work done into the system should be kept a backup copy.

People: The project plan does not have required people to have expertise to work into this implementation and development project (Johnson 2017). Training should be provided to people.

Data communication: There is a communication gap among developed members of the project plan. Frequent meetings are conducted for better communication to be done.

Development risk: There is non-availability of quality tools to make and monitor the plan (Ghezzi, Rangone and Balocco 2013). The software should be tested using system testing.

Defining the change strategy

Communication plan: All the stakeholders discuss the possible schedule and cost changes among them in weekly meetings.

Core competencies for strategy analysis

Internal analysis is done leads to competitive advantage as well as strategic competiveness. Implementation of the proposed system requires information gathering, feasibility study and applied of strategic tools.  

Business analysis tool

Solution Performance Measures: It describes actual performance of the existing solutions of the proposed system (Grant 2016). New solutions to the problems and monitoring of results are required new system approaches.

Specification and model requirements

 All the project specifications and models are documented into requirement specification document. This document can specify all functional and performance requirements of the library system.  

Usability, Technological Core Competencies, and Decision Analysis Tools

Verification of requirements

For implementation of ILS, system testing should be done. All the components of the system are tested such as hardware, software, storage and maintenance environments. It performs an audit of the codes (Dennis, Wixom and Tegarden 2015). The system documentation is revised to make sure that it is sufficient.   

Validation of requirements 

It is validated if the software is maintained properly or not. The errors as well as defects are identified, accurate and validated after the installation of the system.

Define requirements architecture

There is a requirement of use case diagram of the library management system. The architectural design should contain a member, update, add and issue of item, return of item options (Coduto 2015).

Define solution options

The solution options of proposed system are manage of book, member record, acquisitions, circulation and barcodes.

Analyzing potential value and recommend solution

The proposed system provides value to the academic librarians and staff members. The software is used to raise operational efficiency which provides great value to the business.

Business analysis core concept model is used to describe relationships among the core concepts of the proposed system (Stark 2015). Core competence is communication and involvement of the staffs across organizational boundaries.

Modeling tools: The software engineering tools manage requirements of the system into the library. It models and analyzed the business processes.

Prototypes of concept

RFID based prototype is used into the ILS for collection of digital information such as books, movies, journals, and additional items that comprised the collections. This prototype will establish unique barcode for each individual item (Muhammad and Darwish 2017). The new system will handle bar coding of various copies of same items. 

Pilot release

Pilot data conversion is a hardware and software mitigation method used to roll out the new system for testing as well as evaluation. Throughout the pilot implementation, the test group users are providing valuable feedback on the system in order to make an eventual rollout of the system users (Finkbeiner 2014). The testers help to train the employees for new system.   

Operational release

It describes deployment of proposed system, installation and transitioned into the operational system.     

The solutions should be such that the system users can support. The proposed system provides unified managing of resources that the library can own, licenses and make it available to the end users for delivery (Buede and Miller 2016).

Solution scope: The solution boundaries are measured and evaluated. The scope is to authenticate the users at login. It provides list of books that the users can borrow. It also facilitates to reserve the books that are accessible.

Current State and Proposed Development of ILS System

Conclusion

It is concluded that ILS is a web based system for supervision and management of transactions into the library. The proposed system is easy to handle, technically feasible and easily access all the information. Requirement analysis planning and monitoring is best core knowledge areas for the integrated library system as it generates key business analysis deliverables. The deliverables are approach of business analysis, requirement plan, communication plan and stakeholder analysis. Those are required to complete the plan on time.

Modular design of system: The proposed system should require developing with the modular design, the application of library is maintained and it is more scalable.

Good network connection: The librarians require good network connection to increase the benefits gained from implementation of such a system. 

Manage solution scope and requirements: The project scope as well as requirements should require to be properly documented into requirement specification document.

References

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