ITECH1100 Understanding the Digital RevolutionAssignment - Swimwear Revival
CRICOS Provider No. 00103D Page 1 of 6 ITECH1100 Understanding the Digital Revolution Assignment - Swimwear Revival 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. Important: This assignment specification is generated just for you. Do not distribute this specification. If your personal specification is made publicly available online, academic misconduct charges may be applied. Timelines and Expectations Percentage value of task: 20% Due: Refer to Course Description Learning Outcomes Assessed 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. Assessment Details For this assignment, you will complete the following set of tasks using Excel, and create a report to describe your work. Ensure you submit Excel files created for ALL tasks, along with your report. Scenario details Swimwear Revival is a small clothing manufacturer, specializing in creating custom, one-of-a-kind swimwear. They exclusively sell their product through their online store. Swimwear Revival is run by a team of three staff members: Amanda, Bernice, and Clancy. Amanda and Bernice work together to manufacture swimwear. Clancy manages orders, sales and delivery. Team hours Most of the time, team members work the following shifts: Amanda works 6.5 hours on Mondays, Tuesdays; Bernice works 6.5 hours on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; and Clancy works 2.5 hours every weekday. CRICOS Provider No. 00103D Page 2 of 6 Additionally, Amanda and Clancy share responsibility for managing the Swimwear Revival social media presence, with Amanda working one extra hour in the evenings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and Clancy doing the same on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Costs Amanda and Bernice, as skilled manufacturing staff, cost $24 per hour to employ. Clancy, 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 Swimwear Revival. 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 swimwear Swimwear Revival receive requests through their online store, and Clancy responds with a quote, after consulting with a member of the manufacturing team. If the customer confirms their order, Amanda and Bernice manufacture the ordered products, and Clancy organizes delivery. Currently, the process for generating a quote is entirely subjective, based on the requested material and swimwear 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). CRICOS Provider No. 00103D Page 3 of 6 Task 3 - Price consistency Using Excel, analyse the historical data you have available, and create a spreadsheet that allows a member of the Swimwear Revival team to enter the swimwear 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 Swimwear Revival team (or by a University lecturer). You may base your quote amount either on historical averages, or to ensure that Swimwear Revival 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: CRICOS Provider No. 00103D Page 4 of 6 U np op ul ar it em p ro ce ss Cu st om er Done Review quote Quote unacceptable Confirm OrderQuote acceptable St or e Item is not popular Manufacture ItemSend quote Deliver item Po pu la r it em p ro ce ss Cu st om er Done Review quote Quote unacceptable Confirm OrderQuote acceptable St or e Item is popular Manufacture Item Send quote Deliver item Check Inventory Not in stock in stock 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 swimwear 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!) Disclaimer: This task is 100% optional, and you can receive full marks without attempting or completing it. It is intended to be a challenge if you are interested in such things, and the marks available do not reflect the significant research and effort required to implement it correctly. Tutors will not provide significant assistance for this challenge task. Optional task 5 Reimplement Tasks 1, 3 and 4 using either Python or HTML+JavaScript. CRICOS Provider No. 00103D Page 5 of 6 Write a brief overview of how to run your solution, and attach a zip file containing your code submission. There are no partial marks awarded for this bonus task - you must complete all features to attain the bonus marks. It is possible to attain full marks for this assignment without completing this challenge task. Further details Assignment support This assignment is supported by the first 6 lectures and labs. Work on the assignment should be spread over several weeks after the relevant lab has been mastered. Submission All files should be submitted to Moodle by the due date and time. Check with your tutor as to whether a hard copy is required in addition to the electronic submission. Marking Criteria/Rubric Refer to the attached marking guide. Feedback Feedback will be supplied through Moodle. Authoritative marks will be published through fdlMarks Plagiarism Plagiarism is the presentation of the expressed thought or work of another person as though it is one's own without properly acknowledging that person. You must not allow other students to copy your work and must take care to safeguard against this happening. More information about the plagiarism policy and procedure for the university can be found at http://federation.edu.au/students/learning-and-study/online-help-with/plagiarism. http://federation.edu.au/students/learning-and-study/online-help-with/plagiarism CRICOS Provider No. 00103D Page 6 of 6 Marking Guide: Processes and Automation Feature Criteria Maximum Obtained Operating costs Appropriate projection calculation 2 Configurable hours, rates, fixed annual and monthly costs 2 Description of findings 1 Uses hand-calculated values (-1) Visualization Visualization of changes over time 2 Visualization of staff member differences 2 Description of approach and findings 1 Price consistency Spreadsheet interface for pricing 1 Validation of approach based on historical data 2 Justification of automation 2 Unclear instructions (-1) Process improvement Appropriate identification of popular item combinations 2 Use of formula to indicate whether to start manufacturing 2 Justification of strategy 1 Miscellaneous penalties Poor grammar or written English (-2) Indecipherable file naming scheme (-1) Bonus optional challenge task Faithful reimplementation of tasks 1, 3 and 4 using Python or HTML+JavaScript (+2) Total: 20