Introduction
The business setting in which organizations operate has changed significantly
during the last few years. Most businesses compete in a global environment, offering
new opportunities but also new requirements. The ever-increasing internationalization
has several implications for industrial firms. It has an impact on corporate owners and
control, the geographic placement of production sites, and the evolving patterns of
vendor collaboration (Denis, 2012). In essence, organizations encounter worldwide
market rivalry on multiple levels. The rivalry considers not only the commodities of the
rivals but also their organizational and management approaches. Also, they involve
inventory management ideologies and procedures (Denis, 2012). An effective and
integrated inventory management system requires a unique and context-dependent
development process, consisting of design and assessment activities key for effective
performance.t
IKEA Company
IKEA is a multinational firm headquartered in the Netherlands that manufactures
and sells ready-to-assemble furnishings, kitchenware, and home goods, among other
products. Ingvar Kamprad, a 17-year-old Swedish, launched the firm in 1943 and has
been the leading decor retailer since 2008. The company is well-reputed for its interiors
in various furniture pieces, and its interior decorating work is typically associated with
eco-friendly austerity. Furthermore, IKEA is recognized for its emphasis on cost control,
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product details, and continuous product innovation, which has allowed the firm to cut its
price by an estimate of 3%.
Many existing IKEA clients have expressed dissatisfaction with the firm's present
inventory management system and the quality of customer service contacts. A reformed
inventory management system and an enhanced customer service platform are
required, otherwise, IKEA stands to lose key consumers. It is vital to develop an
effective automated system that includes timely and accurate inventory information for
the enormous quantity of products offered by the company. Because of the firm's huge
size and diverse stock, the system's capacity to continually update with the most recent
data may be hampered.
Planning
The planning stage is the essential process of describing why a system must be
constructed and how the development team will develop it. It consists of two steps:
project ideation and evaluation (Davis & Yen, 2019). The system's economic value to
a company is recognized at project inception: how will it reduce costs or additional
sales. The majority of new system ideas come from outside the IS department in the
form of a new system. A system request is a concise description of a company's
requirements that explains how a solution that fulfills the need would provide a value
proposition (Davis & Yen, 2019).
The viability analysis investigates critical details of the proposed development.
These factors include the technological feasibility, financial viability, and organizational
feasibility of the project. When a proposal is authorized, it is assigned to project
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management. Throughout project management, the leader creates a project timeline,
hires staff for the project, and integrates processes to aid the project team in managing
and controlling the project throughout the SDLC.
Analysis
The analysis phase addresses who would use the model, what the system will
perform, and where and when it will be utilized. Throughout this phase, the development
team evaluates any existing system(s), finds potential for improvement, and creates a
concept for the new system. This step includes creating an analytical approach,
obtaining requirements, and creating the concept of a system (Satzinger et al., 2015).
The system proposal is the first output that defines the business requirements that the
proposed program must fulfill. In the analysis phase, the company collected multiple
items, analyzed them, linked them, and gave the proper context to make them viable.
This is the point at which intellect evolves from a collection of loosely related data points
to a final piece that can be used to make decisions.
To guide the system's development, a thorough system analysis will be performed.
Three tangible provisions specify user needs: functional, non-functional, and other
conditions. The user needs are as follows: Entry and change information about items in
the inventory, view and search for information about various users, customers,
suppliers, Products, and bookings of consumers, and the user will be able to enroll or
access from the firm anytime he or she wants. The system will perform the following
functions: enabling users to update credentials for security reasons, requiring them to
generate a 5-character passcode when updating their credentials, and recording all
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information about things bought, delivered, and staying in the shop (Deng & Gan, 2018).
The system will be able to send all stored records as reports to Microsoft Excel.
Design Phase
The design phase specifies the equipment, business applications, and
infrastructure aspects of the system. Even though the majority of the system's key
decisions were made during the system concept creation phase, the processes in the
design phase specify how the system will work. Initially, the layout strategy is
developed. It stipulates whether the program will be developed in-house by the firm's
programmers, outsourced to another, or acquired as a pre-existing software suite (Deng
& Gan, 2018). This results in the creation of the system's essential design process,
which specifies the hardware, programming, and internet infrastructure to be used. In
most cases, the structure will supplement or replace the firm's existing facilities.
The magnitude of the adjustments ranges from minor, such as transforming the
existing system, to dramatic shifts in the entire production system discovered through
the design of a new system. Distinct terms for the modified system are suitable based
on the scope of the transformation. Goals were established in the IKEA design, in a
quick fix environment free of preconceived alternatives. Furthermore, improving the
system meant keeping goals that reflected the initial structure (Bellgran & Säfsten,
2014). Modifying a system can mean changing things within the current framework to
accommodate the changes, or designing a new program that is slightly distinct from the
previous one.
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The various perspectives necessitate distinctions in the activity conducted during
the design stages. This, however, is based on the conclusions drawn from the design
processes carried out within the companies. In the database design, the designers
will concentrate on describing the data and limitations on the key entities, which
includes determining who the entities are, what data is stored about the entities, and
which domains about the entities are distinctive (primary keys) in developing the
software system. Therefore, the emphasis may be on trying to compare multiple strategies during the design phase.
IKEA system designers identified the relevant design factors and concluded on the
best level of these variables based on a systems approach when developing a robust
system. Independently optimizing components may only increase the risk of sub-
optimization (Deng & Gan, 2018). This is not a good precondition for robustness. During
the design of the company's system, figuring out a balance between system stability,
products to be manufactured, innovation and techniques to be used for implementation
were essential prerequisites for Inventory management (Bellgran & Säfsten, 2014). The
SDLC's final stage is the implementation stage. this stage is the actual building of the
system.
Implementation
The system construction step includes construction and evaluating the system to
make sure that it functions as expected. Screening is one of the critical steps in
implementation because the cost of bugs can be enormous (Satzinger et al., 2015).
Many businesses devote so much more attention and time to testing than to
programming in the first place. The installation phase consists of switching off the old
model and turning on the latest one. It can be a straightforward cut-over strategic plan,
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a concurrent transformation strategy, or a phased conversion strategy (Deng & Gan,
2018). During this step, the firm's strategist team developed a system support plan.
The prototype will be evaluated to verify that any problems are rectified, and it will
be verified to confirm that the system functions meet the original system requirements. It
will be verified at several development stages, including unit tests, component testing,
and integration tests, to guarantee that any flaws are detected and corrected. To
prevent wrong user inputs, it will be validated to guarantee that all data fields allow
legitimate inputs. The system will be subjected to additional validation testing to ensure
that it meets the user's needs. Further, it w will be shown to the users to obtain
feedback on its performance and if the system satisfied their demands or criteria.
Conclusion
Previously, it was thought impossible to contend with more than one competitive
edge at the same time. Modern customers, on the other hand, expect more than just a
low price, for instance: they want quality products at the best price, with ease of
accessibility. To stay competitive, organizations must be capable of handling increased
specifications adequately. An effective and integrated inventory management system
necessitates a one-of-a-kind and development process that includes critical design and
analysis activities for system stability.
The system implementation should illustrate the system's user-friendliness, which
implies that the system is simple to use, minimal time consuming, and would improve
the process in performing daily activities and keeping records in IKEA. According to the
analysis, linguistic constraints, a lack of capacity to manage large amounts of data, and
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highly experienced IT professionals are all necessary. This necessitated linguistic
relevance, the ability to manage large amounts of data, and the implementation of user-
friendly technology to replace the present system.
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References
Bellgran, M., & Säfsten, K. (2004). Production system design and evaluation for
increased system robustness. In Second World Conference on POM and 15th
Annual POM Conference, Cancun, Mexico.
Deng, M., Mao, J., & Gan, X. (2018). Development of Automated Warehouse
Management System. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 232, p. 03051). EDP
Sciences.
Satzinger, J., Jackson, R., & Burd, S. (2015). Introduction to systems analysis and
design. книга.
Davis, W. S., & Yen, D. C. (Eds.). (2019). The information system consultant's
handbook: Systems analysis and design. CRC press.
Denis, W. Roth. 2012. System Analysis and Design, 5 th Edition (PowerPoint
Presentation). John Wiley & Sons. Inc.