Reference no: EM132345521

Case - WAITERS ON CALL MEAL-DELIVERY SYSTEM

Waiters on Call is a restaurant meal-delivery service started in 2010 by Sue and Tom Bickford. The Bick¬fords worked for restaurants while in college and always dreamed of opening their own restaurant; unfortunately, the initial investment was always out of reach. The Bick¬fords noticed that many restaurants offer takeout food, and that some restaurants-primarily pizzerias-offer home-delivery service. However, many people they met seemed to want home delivery with a wider food selection.

Sue and Tom conceived Waiters on Call as the best of both worlds: a restaurant service without the high initial investment. They contracted with a variety of well-known restaurants in town to accept orders from customers and to deliver the complete meals. After pre¬paring the meal to order, the restaurant charges Waiters on Call a wholesale price, and the customer pays retail plus a service charge and tip when the meals are deliv¬ered. Waiters on Call started modestly, with only two restaurants and one delivery driver working the dinner shift. Business rapidly expanded, until the Bickfords real¬ized they needed a custom computer system to support their operations. They hired a consultant, Sam Wells, to help them define what sort of system they needed.

"What events happen when you are running your business that make you want to reach for a computer?" asked Sam. "Tell me about what usually goes on."

"Well," answered Sue, "when a customer calls in wanting to order, I need to record it and get the informa-tion to the right restaurant. I need to know which drivers are available to pick up the order, so I need drivers to call in and tell me when they are free. Perhaps this could be included as a smartphone or iPad app. Sometimes, customers call back wanting to change their orders, so I need to find the original order and notify the restaurant to make the change."

"Okay, that's great. Now, how do you handle the money?' queried Sam.

Tom jumped in. "The drivers get a copy of the bill showing the retail price directly from the restaurant when they pick up the meal. The bill should agree with our calculations. The drivers collect that amount plus a service charge. When drivers report in at closing, we add up the money they have and compare it with the records we have. After all drivers report in, we need to create a deposit slip for the bank for the day's total re¬ceipts. At the end of each week, we calculate what we owe each restaurant at the agreed-to wholesale price and send them a statement and check."

"What other information do you need to get from the system?" continued Sam.

"It would be great to have some information at the end of each week about orders by restaurant and or¬ders by area of town-things like that" Sue said. "That would help us decide about advertising and restaurant contracts. Then, we need monthly statements for our accountant."

Sam made some notes and sketched some dia¬grams as Sue and Tom talked. Then, after spending some time thinking about it, he summarized the situa¬tion for Waiters on Call. "It sounds to me like you need a system to use whenever these events occur":
A customer calls in to place an order, so you need to Record an order.
A driver is finished with a delivery, so you need to Record delivery completion.
A customer calls back to change an order, so you need to Update an order.
A driver reports for work, so you need to Sign in the driver.
A driver submits the day's receipts, so you need to Reconcile driver receipts.
Sam continues, "Then, you need the system to produce information at specific points in time-for example, when it is time to,"
Produce an end-of-day deposit slip.
Produce end-of-week restaurant payments.
Produce weekly sales reports.
Produce monthly financial reports.

Am I on the right track?"

Sue and Tom quickly agreed that Sam was talking about the system in a way they could understand. They were confident that they had found the right consultant for the job.

Recall that Waiters on Call has been working with Sam Wells on the requirements for its meal-delivery system. Sue and Tom Bickford want a new system that will auto¬mate and improve their specialty business of providing customer-ordered, home-delivered meals prepared by a variety of local restaurants. Sam did a great job of iden¬tifying the use cases required for the delivery service, which impressed the Bickfords. And while working on the use cases, he continued to note all the business terms and concepts that the Bickfords used as they described their operations. He followed up with ques¬tions about the types of things they work with each day, which they answered.

"Based on what you've told me," Sam said, "I assume you will need the system to store infor¬mation about the following types of things, which we call data entities or domain classes: restaurants, menu items, customers, and orders. I also think you're going to need to store information about the following types of things: drivers, addresses, routes, and order payments."

The Bickfords readily agreed and added that it was important to know what route a restaurant was on and how far it might be to the customer's address. They wanted drivers to be assigned to a route based on the distances from place to place.

"Yes, we need to decide how things need to be associated in the system," Sam agreed. "Can you tell me if drivers pick up orders from several restaurants when they go out? Can you tell me how many items are usually included in one order? Do you note pickup times and delivery times? Do you need to plan the route so that hot dishes are delivered first?"

The Bickfords were further reassured that they had picked an analyst who was aware of the needs of their business.

Requirement: Based on the scenario above, create a context diagram and Level zero DFD.