Reference no: EM132434739

ITECH1100 Understanding the Digital Revolution

Assignment - Trousers Zone

Overview

For this individual assignment, you will use skills acquired through practical laboratory exercises to automate a business process, and to visualize the impact of the automation.

You should use Microsoft Excel (or equivalent open-source software) for this assessment task.

Learning Outcomes

The following course learning outcomes are assessed by completing this assessment:

A1. Prepare a basic solution to a business problem;
A2. Select appropriate IT solutions for business functions;
A3. Apply business information software for data visualization and analysis purposes.
S1. Write basic programming logic;
S3. Interpret and construct representations of business data flow and processes;
K8. Outline the basic principles of programming.

Scenario details

Trousers Zone is a small clothing manufacturer, specializing in creating custom, one-of-a-kind trousers. They exclusively sell their product through their online store.

Trousers Zone is run by a team of three staff members: Augusta, Bertha, and Christina.

Augusta and Bertha work together to manufacture trousers. Christina manages orders, sales and delivery.

Costs
Augusta and Bertha, as skilled manufacturing staff, cost $24 per hour to employ. Christina, a part-time employee, costs $32 per hour to employ.
All staff are also entitled to four weeks of paid annual leave, during which a casual replacement is required at a cost of $36 per hour.

Fixed costs such as rent and insurance are $18000 per year, and utilities costs are $460 per month.

Task 1 - Costs of operating the business

Using Excel, create a spreadsheet called operating_costs.xlsx that calculates the projected annual outgoing costs of running Trousers Zone.

Your spreadsheet should be configured such that the working hours, hourly rates, and fixed and utility costs can be varied easily.

Document your findings in your report (approximately 100 words).

Manufacturing trousers
Trousers Zone receive requests through their online store, and Christina responds with a quote, after consulting with a member of the manufacturing team. If the customer confirms their order, Augusta and Bertha manufacture the ordered products, and Christina organizes delivery.

Currently, the process for generating a quote is entirely subjective, based on the requested material and trousers size. Staff members quote an amount based on their personal experience.

For several months, staff have been keeping track of the quote date, material, size, quote amount, and manufacturing cost for each order in a spreadsheet. As each product is hand-made, the manufacturing cost may vary between similar orders.

If a quote was not accepted by the customer, then manufacturing cost is not included. This spreadsheet is available for download on Moodle.

Task 2 - Order information

Using Excel, process the history of orders spreadsheet and use appropriate charts to visualize: How some aspect of quoting or manufacturing has changed over time; and
How the quote amount differed for each staff member.

You will need to find a way to use Excel to associate each quote with a staff member. Describe your approach and your findings in your report (approximately 250-400 words).

Task 3 - Price consistency

Using Excel, analyse the historical data you have available, and create a spreadsheet that allows a member of the Trousers Zone team to enter the trousers material and size, and gives a quote amount.

Ensure that you include enough text and formatting to make your spreadsheet usable by a member of the Trousers Zone team (or by a University lecturer).

You may base your quote amount either on historical averages, or to ensure that Trousers Zone makes a profit.

Validate your quoting approach by applying your formula to historical data.

Justify your approach in your report (approximately 150 words).
Process improvement
The team want to improve their quoting process to reduce time spent waiting for customers to approve quotes.

They would like to start manufacturing immediately for orders that they might be able to sell in future, even if the customer does not go ahead with the order.

That is, they would like to change to the processes indicated in the following swimlane diagrams:

Task 4 - Process improvement

Extend your spreadsheet page from task 3 to automate the above processes, allowing a member of the team to enter the trousers material and size, and in addition to the quote amount indicate whether to start manufacturing immediately.

It is up to you do determine how to determine which items are popular. Justify your approach in your report (approximately 150 words).
Bonus challenge task

Optional task 5

Reimplement Tasks 1, 3 and 4 using either Python or HTML+JavaScript.

Write a brief overview of how to run your solution, and attach a zip file containing your code submission.

Attachment:- Trousers Zone.rar