CASE STUDY 1: - SOUTH STREET BONTON’S CLOTHING STORE

Pamela Coburn, a system analyst, has worked for some time with Luis Asperilla, the manager of
the South Street Bonton’s clothing store, observing him in action during the day and talking with
him whenever business slows. Pamela is feeling fairly sure of the store’s processes now and
want to capture what she has learned on paper.

The Story

“Let’s see. We’ve have got a clerk adding up day’s receipts from the cash register tape by
calculator. After she add them initially, she separates them into different departments, including
juvenile, maternity, and infants. Then she gives her department subtotals and total on scratch
paper to me”, says Luis Asperilla.

Pamela Coburn, a system analyst who is working with a group of 26 franchise clothing stores
called Bonton’s, is talking to the South Street store’s manager, Luis and she is trying to
understand the data flows within the store. Luis continues the narrative. “Then I recheck the day’s
receipts, looking for any discrepancies. Next I enter the day’s breakdown of the day’s receipts,
their departments, and the total day’s receipts into the ledger, and I will fill out the deposit for the
bank. All day receipt information is stored in one place, in the ledger in my office.”

Pamela asks, “Do you keep a copy anywhere?” Luis pauses, then replies, “Well, there is a
weekly report that summarizes all of the weekly information for the head of franchising in New
York. They enter it into their computers and we get sent a printout at the end of the month. So, if I
wait five weeks, I do in effect get a copy back. Except that I keep each printout and reconcile it
against my own monthly summary that I do by hand. You’d be surprised at how often there is a
mistake in what they send back. Then I write them a letter and try to get it corrected so my six-
month inventories come out right. I keep copies of all correspondence to New York in a file
drawer. I’m always writing to them on something they’ve screwed up. And I need a copy to prove
I sent in a correction.”

Luis continues, “Computers in New York seem worth it, I suppose, but I think they introduce an
awful lot of errors if you don’t use common sense when you enter the numbers in. But the ledger
book does get heavy to pull down from the shelf by the end of the year.”

“I keep a lot of what happens in the store in my head too,” Luis adds thoughtfully. “It’s so hard to
write everything down, because we get so busy. Like which customers are allowed layaway
privileges and information like that. I keep a few notes in my desk. I think you’ll find that I am
really organized compared to the other managers in town”.

1. Draw a context diagram for Bonton’s.

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CASE STUDY 2: - TECHNICAL TEMPORARIES

Technical Temporaries is a company that specializes in placing employees in businesses for short
periods of time. The company specializes in temporaries who have degree of proficiency in
working with PC software, such as word processing and spreadsheets, as well as other technical
areas. Each employee must pass proficiency tests for areas in which they wish to be certified.
The system described below is responsible for matching employees with short-term openings that
are available.

List of Business Activities

• Businesses telephone the company to request temporaries to fill specific positions. The
requests are used to create a Temporary Employment Request record. If the business
requesting the temporary employee is not on the Employee Master File, a record is created
for it.
• Employees are selected to fill the temporary positions based on employee qualifications and
availability. The Temporary Employee Master and the Temporary Request files are used to list
all qualified candidates.
• Contracts are sent to the selected temporaries. Information is printed from the Employee
Master, Employer Master, and Temporary Employment Request files.
• Returned contracts are used to update the Employee Master file. The Temporary
Employment Request file is updated with scheduling and personnel information.
• Monthly schedules are printed for each employee. They contain information from Employee
Master, Employer Master and Employment Request files and they are sequenced by
employment date for each employee.
• Notification is sent to the business requesting the temporary employees confirming the date
and qualifications of the workers as well as their names.

CASE STUDY 3: - FASTBASE CORP

The Fastbase Corporation develops PC base software products that are sold for both the
domestic and international market. Customers receiving the products are sent a set of additional
fonts if they return a warranty card registration card that is included with the software and
documentation. The diagram represents a batch process and is the child of process 5, Add
Customer Registration. The following tasks are included:

• Inspect the Warranty Registration Card received from the customer to ensure that the
information is complete and accurate. Incomplete cards are placed in a reject box.
• Data entry operators key the Warranty Registration Card, thus creating a Warranty
Registration file.
• A different data entry operator verifies the keyed data by reentering the Warranty Registration
Card information. The data entry terminal compares the data previously keyed with the entry
made by the second operator. Discrepancies are displayed.
• The Warranty Registration File is input to a batch edit program. Each record is checked for
accuracy. Errors are printed on a Warranty Validation Report, and valid records are placed on
a Valid Warranty Registration File.
• The Warranty Registration File is used as input, along with the Customer Master File, into the
Customer Warranty Update Program. Records are added or updated, depending on whether
the customer already exists on the Customer Master File.
• The Valid Warranty Registration File is used to print a series of mailing labels for sending the
font software to the customer.

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