What programming language or languages is best suited for a pizza company that needs to centralize their management system (SMS)? While ensuring that all 20 locations can operate even if the corporate system is down. Please give examples of why the selected language is the best choice. Below are more details:
Skytower Pizza Note: This organization is used throughout this course, including the midterm and final. Skytower Pizza is a fictitious organization; any similarities to any real organizations are purely coincidental. Skytower Pizza (SPZA) is a mid-sized fast food delivery and carry-out pizza restaurant. In business for nearly twenty years, SPZA, a regional company based in the east central United States, has averaged double digit growth over the last 12 years. Competitors, including both regional and national chains, view SPZA as a significant threat because of SPZA's growth rate, which is above the national average, and recent wins in "best taste" competitions at both local and regional levels. Rumor has it they will enter the national competition this year, an event often publicized in national media. They have also been recently rated by a national food quality survey. Although senior management has denied it, industry insiders have speculated that SPZA is positioning itself for an initial public offering in hopes of generating enough capital to start franchising restaurants. Early in SPZA's history, a company was hired to develop the SPZA Management System (SMS). SMS was designed to be a single restaurant management system handling all aspects of the business from HR, supply chain, order entry, and financial reporting. About ten years ago, SPZA hired their first software developer to maintain and evolve SMS. Kevin, the first developer, is still employed by SPZA and has worked his way up to be the director of information technology. Kevin's staff consists of 20 IT/development full-time equivalent employees (FTE). T•here are more than 20 people in the IT/development group as many of the employees, especially in smaller restaurants, have other responsibilities to the organization. All employees, including senior management and IT/development, are required to work at least one full shift in a restaurant each month. SPZA owners believe this has given the company a competitive advantage because everyone is forced to learn the core business. SPZA maintains a small corporate office. Most of the IT/development staff is located at larger restaurants throughout the region. SPZA has found that the deployed workforce works very well given their business structure because it allows for reduced overhead costs-not having to maintain a large corporate headquarters-and allows SPZA to recruit from a much larger pool of employees. Senior management has indicated they will continue this practice as the company grows. Although SMS has been well maintained and updated has technology has changed over the years, it is still based on a single restaurant model. Each restaurant has a server and the appropriate number of computers and point-of-sale terminals. The management team of each restaurant-all restaurants are owned by SPZA-runs weekly reports and sends them, electronically via email, to corporate headquarters. For various reasons, some restaurants do not have Internet access and managers are forced to put the reports on flash drives and send the reports from either their home or, if a local Wi-Fi hot spot is close, from a corporate-issued laptop. SPZA senior management understands the need to centralize their SMS. They want to reduce the perrestaurant burden of sending weekly reports to corporate while increasing the security of the transactions. They also want to streamline the process of consolidating the reports at corporate so the senior management team has quicker access to the data. Specifically, they want more timely sales and supplies information. They realize that having more real time information will allow them to react more quickly to changing market conditions. For example, knowing that a restaurant has pepperoni that is nearing the end of its shelf life will allow them to offer customize their coupons and special deals so that the pepperoni will not go to waste. The following information was gathered from interview with the SPZA senior management team.
High level requirements:
Centralize all data to the corporate data center
Reduce manual reporting requirements at the restaurant level
Reduce / eliminate report consolidation at the corporate level
Get real time or near real time access to data
Ensure that restaurants are able to operate even if the corporate system is down
Utilize the existing staff
Ensure that reports are integrated between the old and new systems during any transition
Have the ability to give non SPZA employees access to the data for future business endeavors
Expectations / Concessions:
Restaurants may be brought on line en masse or one at a time over a transition period. Restaurants should not have to use both systems
The existing system can be rewritten or modified, but the project must remain on schedule and within budget
If forecasted and budgeted, it is okay to augment existing staff with contract or temporary employees.
In an interview with Kevin, the IT/development lead, the following information was gathered:
He would like to keep the existing investment in code. He and his staff know the code inside and out and doesn't want to have to start over.
Keep the IT/development staff's skills up to date with the latest technology so that they will remain happy and not look for work elsewhere
Run both systems concurrently so that all the bugs can be worked out
Utilize existing hardware
Have a centralized database
Ensure the system, from the restaurant to corporate, is both highly available (HA) and recoverable (i.e., have a disaster recovery capabilities)
Ensure that individual restaurants continue to work if the central office is down
Ensure all of the development staff is engaged with the project-he doesn't want to leave anyone out.
Does not want to require the IT/development staff to move to headquarters-individual store managers do not want to lose their IT support.
Have a way to automatically test the application
Position the system for dramatic future growth
Ensure the system has granular layers of security
Allow individual restaurants to continue to do manual reports even after implementation of the new system
The following quotes were taken consolidated from interviews with individual restaurant managers:
The system has to work. I'm running a pizza shop, not a computer shop!
I have to be able to run reports manually. I get asked all the time about how the restaurant is doing and I use the reports to tell my managers what is going on.
I like our current system. I don't know why we have to change. It seems to be working real good.
I can't wait until the new system comes on line. I spend half my time driving down to the coffee shop to send reports to corporate. Why can't we get Internet access here? Wouldn't it be easier if I just faxed the reports-it would save me a lot of time.
We seem to have a lot of computer problems here in the restaurant. I'm afraid that Dave, our IT guy, will spend too much time writing the new system and not helping me solve my problems.
All my guys know how to use the existing system. I don't want to have to train everyone on something new. It would slow us down too much.
I worked at another pizza place as a thrower. When the system would go down, we couldn't get any orders. I got paid, but our delivery people didn't. They only make money when the system works and they are delivering pizzas. We lost a lot of good people because of that.
The following quotes were taken from other employees in the company:
Patti (business analyst): I'm the person that puts the weekly report together. Sure, it takes me several days to do it, but it is a lot of data. I've heard the new system will be automatic. I'm worried that they'll lay me off because I'm not needed anymore. I don't want the new system.
Jeorge (delivery driver): As long as the system prints labels that I could read, that would be great. The current system's labels are too small to read in moving car. Printing a map and directions would be great too.
Sarah (local IT support): I like fixing the computers and working on the telephone problems, but I don't want to be a programmer.
Quinn (logistics): I'd love to know what I have to ship to what stores. I hate getting emergency phone calls from managers telling me I have to drive them a box of cheese because they don't know how to keep inventory.
Allan (customer): I love SPZA pizza. It bugs me that I can't order online and everything I order from a different restaurant, they have to ask me for my address, and phone number, and all that other stuff.
Jacob (industry analyst): SPZA is doing a great job. Expanding and competing on the national level will require them to have the systems and processes in place to do so. I do not think they have the knowledge, skills, or ability with their internal IT department to take on a task that large. From all reports, many of their core employees have been there from near the beginning and do not have the experience necessary experience at the national level to ensure a successful systems implementation.