Case Study: Digitalizing Walvis Bay Yacht Club Systems

Systems of interest within the internal boundary of WBYC

Write a Case Study on Walvis Bay Yacht Club?

Walvis Bay Yacht Club (WBYC) is a private yacht club which has a school for sailing and seamanship. Mainly the Navy used it to train its personnel. WBYC is privately owned and administered which provides services to the Namibian and Angolan navies as well as to civilian club members. It is managed by an executive board which has roles like – Commodore (chief executive), Finance Director, Education Director and Training Director, there are also two representatives from the Navy. The services which are provided by WBYC are – full range of maritime education with sports facilities, hostels, canteen and restaurant, facilities manageress and a sick bay. Thus, WBYC has various departments like HOD (Head Of the Department), teachers, a nurse, cleaners, catering, crew and maintenance staff for boats.

The three possible systems that should be digitalized and be supported by proper information technology solutions are:

The Walvis Bay Yacht Club essentially requires a system that would be helpful in maintaining the details of the memberships of the card.

The system should be able to maintain all personal records of those people who hold memberships of the club. The details of the membership should also be available on the system, along with the details of the access that the members have, to the various facilities offered by the club. The club members should also be able to access all the details of their club membership using this system. The system should be able to generate automated text messages and/ or electronic mails directed towards the club members so as to provide them information regarding the renewal of their club membership.

 Using this very same system, the club members should be able to book those facilities that the club makes available to them. The information regarding all these bookings should also be recorded by the system and should be made readily available such that they can be used for further retrieval of information.

In case the club members would want to take admissions in any course provided by the sailing school and/ or the seamanship school, they can use this particular system for the admission process. The course fees would directly be added to their club membership fees via the membership system.

The various record containing details of the students who are taking admission to the schools of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club need to be maintained using a software  system. The system should be able to hold record from of both the schools in separate sections, which should contain the various personal record of the students and the detail of the nearest family member who should be contacted in case of any accident and/ or mishaps Since the club runs two schools for seamanship and that of sailing, it should be considered that frequent minor accidents can occur in  both of the schools, the treatment process of which would require detailed health records like that of blood group of the students, records of chronic health conditions that the students might have, the medications taken for treating those conditions and so on. The paramedic associated with the club should be able to have an access of all these records using the proposed system.

The Membership Management System

The system should be able to record the fact that whether a student has taken admission in either of the two schools or at both of them. In case a student takes admission in both the courses offered by the school, the system should be able to provide guidance regarding the management of the class schedules such that he or she is able to attend both the schools.

Detailed records of all the achievements made by each student of the schools should be available on the system. The system should also be able to recognize any student who holds a membership of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club, that is, the admissions system should be linked with the system that maintains the records of membership of the club.

The software system being used to maintain the procedure of admissions should also be able to maintain the records of those students who used to attend the schools of seamanship and sailing in the previous sessions.

The employee management system is maintained in any organization so as to record and manage the details of all the details of the employees and/ or staff that are associated with any organization.

The employee management system maintained at the Walvis Bay Yacht Club should record all the personal details of the employees, besides maintaining all  the records of their job responsibilities, their positions, their job accomplishments and the compensations that they are about to receive from the organization.

Using the employee management system, the staff should be able to register their daily attendance at office. The employee management system should also be utilized to maintain the record of the allocations of daily duties and/ or shifts of the employees. The functionality that records the attendance of the employees could also be used to keep a track on the number of leaves that are available to the employees.

This particular system manages the detailed records of club members: their name, address, type of membership and the details of their family members. The data being put into the system is recorded into the tables of the data base management system maintained by the organization. The operations management system maintained by the Walvis Bay Yacht Club is the environment of the membership management system.

Figure: Use case diagram: Membership management system

This particular system manages the detailed records of employees: their name, address, positions held, salary package, job responsibilities, contact details and the details of their family members. The data being put into the system is recorded into the tables of the data base management system maintained by the organization. The operations management system maintained by the Walvis Bay Yacht Club is the environment of the employee management system.

Figure: Use case diagram: Employee management system

The CATWOE model of root definition is a process that defines the following aspects of any system:

C = CUSTOMERS OR CLIENTS
A = ACTORS OR AGENTS
T = TRANSFORMATION PROCESS
W =WELTANSCHAUUNG or WORLD VIEW
O = OWNERS
E = ENVIRONMENT

The Admission Management System

The admission management system will be used to facilitate the activities associated with the admission of students, both club members and non-members, in the courses provided by the sailing school and the seamanship school run by the Walvis Bay Yacht Club.

Using this particular system, the WBYC will be able to manage and record all the details of the students who are taking admissions in the courses offered by the club, the details of their achievements at the schools and the fees paid by them

• CATWOE Model of the admission management system:

The students and/ or club members  taking admissions in various courses offered by the sailing school and the seamanship school run by Walvis Bay Yacht Club.

The actors taking part in this management system are-

1. The students taking admission in the courses offered by the club.
2. The employees who record the details of the students in the system.                                              

The data being recorded in the system are then maintained in the tables of the data system management system which store all the data being recorded by the operations management system of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club.

When the admission management system is searched for any data associated with any student, the system searches the required set of data from the database system and retrieves them, if found.

The proposed system is a part of the operations management system of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club, failure of which will negatively affect the record maintenance system of the club.

The higher management of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club is the owner of this system; they are the ones who had made the decision of incorporating this system in their organization, and they are the ones who have the sole ownership over the system.

The environmental constraints of the system:

1. The system has the ability to collect only those personal details of the students that are essential for the system to operate.
2. These records are not made available to any third party concerns without the consent of the students.
3. The admission system essentially provides ‘first come first’ services.
4. The admission system is able to provide services to only those members or students who have already taken admissions to the courses.

The stake holders of the system are:

The management of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club: They have the sole ownership over the system and have the responsibility of taking decisions regarding the management of the system.

The employees of the club: The employees of the club are the opens who operate all the functionalities of the system.

The users of the system: The club members and the students who take admissions in the various courses offered by the club are the people who exploit the facilities provided by the club.

 A Basden & A Wood-Harper, 'A philosophical discussion of the root definition in soft systems thinking: an enrichment of CATWOE', in Syst. Res., vol. 23, 2006, 61-87.

 B Bergvall-Kåreborn, A Mirijamdotter & A Basden, 'Basic Principles of SSM Modeling: An Examination of CATWOE from a Soft Perspective', in Systemic Practice and Action Research, vol. 17, 2004, 55-73.

 E Gelenbe & I Mitrani, Analysis and synthesis of computer systems, in , London, UK, Imperial College Press, 2010.

 E Antonacopoulou & J Méric, 'A critique of stake‐holder theory: management science or a sophisticated ideology of control?', in Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, vol. 5, 2005, 22-33.

Figure: The influence and frequency use of the stake holders of the system.

A system can be defined as the orderly and/ or appropriates grouping of various components that depend on each other to perform a certain set of functionalities. The components are linked together to perform the basic utilities of  a system.

The Employee Management System

A system is incorporated in any organization according to some plan so as to achieve a specific set of objectives that are essential to that organization. The essential characteristics that any system, should posses are: a proper organization of the system itself, an ability to interact with other system that exist within the same environment or outside, the interdependence of the components of the system, and an integration of  the system towards fulfilling a common objective.

The following can be considered as the elements of any system:

1. The inputs to the system.
2. The processors of the system.
3. The functionalities used for controlling the system.
4. The feedback paths of the system.
5. The environment of the system.
6. The interfaces of the system used for the purpose of interaction with other systems present within the environment or outside it.
7. The boundaries of the system

The various  types of computer system that are generally incorporated in business organizations are:

Physical systems: tangible entities that might operate either in a static way or in a dynamic way.

Abstract Systems: System that are more of conceptual entities and do not have any physical existence are known as abstract system.

Open Systems: A system that has the ability to interact with the other systems in its environment and possess many interfaces for such communication purposes are known as open systems.  Such systems allow interaction with other systems at their boundaries: in order to receive inputs or feedbacks from other systems and/or to provide outputs or feed backs to those systems.

Closed system: A closed system remains in isolation from the other systems in its environment and has no provision for any interaction with any other system.

The system that is being incorporated in the Walvis Bay Yacht Club should be an abstract one. The system should be designed in such a way that it would be able to interact with the other systems in its environment: that is an open system should be implemented by the WBYC. The interaction of all the systems within the environment is necessary since all the sub systems of the operation management system need access data stored and processed by other subsystems. As for example, the admissions management system needs to access data stored by the membership management system so as to access the details of the club members who are taking admission in the courses offered by the sailing school and the seamanship school.

Soft systems methodology or SSM can be thought of as an approach towards the modeling of   various organizational processes, otherwise known as business process modeling. The soft system methodology can be applied for designing solution general problems and to those problems that aim at finding management solutions to any change that have been incorporated in any system.

 The most common uses of SSM are found in those systems which aim at analyzing various complex situations which consist of divergent views associated with the definition of a particular problem, otherwise known as "soft problems".

In situations associated with soft problems, the problem for which the solution is being generated might not be properly pointed out: thus the solution primarily involves an interrogative devise that aims at finding out the problem which will be solved, using a debate among the various concerned topics.

The soft systems methodology has seven primary steps involved that are used to solve the entire problem: starting from the process of primary appreciation of the problem up to providing a modular solution to the problem being considered. The steps are:

1. Recognizing the situation that should be considered as problematical.
2. In-detailed analysis of the problem that has been recognized
3. Formulating the root definitions associated with the relevant systems that will be necessary in fulfilling the purposes of the activity.
4. Building conceptual models of those sub systems that have been identified by the root definition of the entire system.
5. Comparative study of the designed models with those situations that occur in the real world.
6. Define those changes the introduction of which in the systems would be both feasible and possible.
7. Taking necessary actions so as to improve the condition of the problem being solved.

System components

The transportation problem that has been discussed in the article titled as ‘Soft systems methodology as learning and management tool’ has certain properties that should be solved systematically using a soft system methodology. Generally the solution to such engineering problems are provided using the hard system methodology that aims at providing solutions based on objectives that has been set up previously. However , when the social and human activities of any system are to be considered, it is essential to follow a soft system methodology.

The system being considered in this report is as data hungry as the transportation problem described in the article: the process of designing a functional solution to the system would require the analysis of a huge range of data that is used, generated and processed by the manual system currently in use, such that the product development team is able to get clear picture of the data flow of the system being designed.

The operations management system can be decomposed into various functional sub systems which aim to depict various human activities:  such systems generally consist of various ill-structured  and problematic situation that are found in the real world, and thus the application of soft system methodologies in their designing phase are not only relevant but are essential. The soft system methodology involves techniques using which complex problems can be defined, and the procedure does not require the definition of the system before analyzing it, rather it involves the process of analysis of the existing system in order to design a model that could be used to replace it.

The Soft system methodology was implemented in the transportation system planning as it served the following purposes:

1. The methodology provided an inquiring system that would be helpful in recognizing the true characteristics of the ill defined problems that exist in the system.
2. The system provides facilities to its users such that they  can slowly adapt to the new system being incorporated and provide new strategies which can be used so as to improve it.
3. The background of the problem is always considered with importance.
4. The methodology applies two methods of analysis: the logic driven method which considers the operational activities of the system and the culture driven analysis which takes into consideration the social, cultural, political and the human activity based context of the problem being considered. However, the final interaction of these two analysis methodologies is inevitable: as both the analysis methodologies have been developed with the aim of providing support and information to each other.
5. A comparative analysis of the model being developed and that of the physical models that are actually present in the real world is conducted: the aim of the analysis being the recognition of those changes that can possibly be implemented in the system.
6. Last, but not the least, the methodology provides activities that can facilitate the improvement of the of the problem situation.

Thus it can be said that the main reason behind the application of the soft system methodology in the development of the transportation project was that the methodology accounts for all the elements of subjectivity that might exist in any human activity system.

The very same reasons are applicable for the application of the soft system methodology in the project being considered in this assignment.

Conclusion:

The various technological aspects associated with the installation of an operation management system have been described in this assignment paper. The sub systems of the operation s management project have been discussed, besides providing a root definition of the system. A CATWOE model has also been used to analyze the root definition. The stake holder analysis of the system provides a clear insight into the roles played by various groups of people who are associated with the system. Finally, through extensive research, it has been finalized that the soft system methodology will be used to design and develop the project.

References:

Antonacopoulou, E, & J Méric, 'A critique of stake‐holder theory: management science or a sophisticated ideology of control?'. in Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 5, 2005, 22-33.

Basden, A, & A Wood-Harper, 'A philosophical discussion of the root definition in soft systems thinking: an enrichment of CATWOE'. in Syst. Res., 23, 2006, 61-87.

Bergvall-Kåreborn, B, A Mirijamdotter, & A Basden, 'Basic Principles of SSM Modeling: An Examination of CATWOE from a Soft Perspective'. in Systemic Practice and Action Research, 17, 2004, 55-73.

Dargan, P, Open systems and standards for software product development. in , Boston, MA, Artech House, 2005.

Finkelstein, A. in cs.ucl.ac.u, , 2015, <https://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein/advmsc/6.pdf> [accessed 23 June 2015].

Gelenbe, E, & I Mitrani, Analysis and synthesis of computer systems. in , London, UK, Imperial College Press, 2010.

Hannola, L, K Elfvengren, & M Tuominen, 'A group support system process for the definition of software requirements'. in IJIL, 7, 2010, 171.

Hassan, S, 'Soft Systems Methodology in Environment-Aware Case-Based Reasoning System Analysis'. in Information Technology J., 9, 2010, 467-473.

Jianmei, Y, 'An approach applying SSM to problem situations of interests conflicts: Interests-coordination SSM'. in Syst. Res., 27, 2010, 171-189.

Rodriguez-Ulloa, R, & A Paucar-Caceres, 'Soft System Dynamics Methodology (SSDM): Combining Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) and System Dynamics (SD)'. in Syst Pract Act Res, 18, 2005, 303-334.

 L Hannola, K Elfvengren & M Tuominen, 'A group support system process for the definition of software requirements', in IJIL, vol. 7, 2010, 171.

 P Dargan, Open systems and standards for software product development, in , Boston, MA, Artech House, 2005.

 A Finkelstein, in cs.ucl.ac.u, , 2015, <https://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein/advmsc/6.pdf> [accessed 23 June 2015].