The Improvement of Pitaya with Online Booking System

Cheng-Gang Li

Department of Industry Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, 101, Sec. 2 Kuang Fu Road, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan

Abstract

Online booking is already used to support shopping everywhere in internet. This case researches the shopping and ordering process about pitaya which was planted and sold by the peasants. The IT methods were applied to promote and improve the selling pitaya. According to survey, it provided and collected the information and data about selling pitaya. By the IT tools, the INCOME4 was applied to build the behavior process model which included both AS-IS process model and TO-BE process model[1]. The AS-IS process model was analyzed and rebuilt the improved model, TO-BE process model. The research tried to find the drawback of the process. The drawback, also called “bottleneck of process”, was needed to overcome for providing a more efficient and economy process operated. At the same time, the case redesigned and rebuilt the shopping and ordering website by Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2[5] and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010[6]. The new website was referenced by surveying the benchmark. It attempted to provide consumers to surf fitter and more convenient and the seller to manage easier and more practical. It will be also included into shoping process and assisted to improve the process. The result of the research explained whether the pitaya with online booking system was improved and promoted. Keywords: Pitaya, Online Booking System, Processing Improvement, INCOME4,

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 1. Introduction 1.1. Background & Motivation

Online booking is already used to support shopping everywhere in the world. It has many good characteristics like convenience, rapidity, economy and so on. Due to the development of both Information technology and computer, Building a shopping website is not difficult by oneself. For the above reasons, a real case, peasants who plant and sell organic fruit, pitaya, are in Yunlin County. They do not sell it by

retailers. They establish website, but it's too simple and no business value. For promoting organic fruit and their produce, Pitaya, from their farm, Sun Fruit farm(晨盈農場), Wanting the information of the selling website is to be used more efficiency. The case can be taken to try and help to sell pitaya by a more practical and convenient shopping website. At the same time, attempt finds shopping process shortcoming of three kind of method presently. 1.2 Purpose

Through the real case research, checking the selling process finds whether existing the drawbacks of the selling process is worthy of the improvement. Finding to make wasting key points is to be improved in process. At the same time, building the more business and using value website assists peasants to sell their produce and collect customer's data for commercial use. Let consumers think that shopping Pitaya process is economic and convenient and the seller thinks that it will be convenient to manage selling orders. 2. Literature Review

IT is enabling fundamental changes in the way work is done. IT is causing shifts in the competitive climate in many industries. IT presents new strategic opportunities for organizations that reassess their missions and operations. The transition to harmony shifts the locus of value from individual products to integrated customization service.[1] From above reasons, IT in the world now provides a more competitive method that is integrating selling process and already becomes the trend. Even that will be depended on basic requirement in the near future.

Many IT methods can be used to analyze, promote or improve the shopping and ordering process like Enterprise Process Modeling and Analysis Tool – INCOME4. Building website software can be used to assist to sell product like ASP.NET, SQL Server. In order to build a corresponding and actual situation, the shopping website can be applied in the real world. It is need to Survey the benchmark website about selling fruit website. That will provide good references to build the website and online booking system of the case. Surveying in the internet selected 水果三六五頂級水果

專賣店[2] and 阿洲水果行[3]. Both are taken to represent benchmark of the selling fruit website. Because their model and design corresponds to the elements that consumers often surf and prefer to shop online shopping websites with like PChome online shopping website[4]. And shopping process is smooth and friendly. The design of website style is modern and clear. Operation interface is not difficult. The benchmark websites are illustrated in Figure 1. About 水果三六五頂級水果專賣店[2]

and Figure 2. about 阿洲水果行[3].

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e)

(a) (b)

Figure 1. 水果三六五頂級水果專賣店。Website– (a) Login page, (b) Register page, (c)

Membership page, (d) Cart page, (e) Order page.

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

(g) 3. Methodology There are many methods and tools which are taken to research and improve the process about shopping and ordering. INCOME4 which is enterprise process modeling and analysis tool is selected to research and analyze this case process. There are also many building website softwares which can be taken building the shopping website of this case. Microsoft SQL Server2008 R2 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 which are free and universal are selected to build the improving and promoting website of this case. 3.1 INCOME4 Income4 can be used to be a modeling and analytic tool for enterprise process.

Figure 2. 阿洲水果行。Website– (a) Login page, (b) Register page, (c) Membership page, (d)

Shopping page, (e) Cart page. (f) Order page one, (g) Order page two.

There are three kind of models in it, Behavior molding, Organization molding, Object (Information) molding. Behavior mold defines process and business rules like sequence, procondition for an activity, branching, and refine. Organization model identifies resource and personnel roles. Object model defines information or data structure[1]. Income process designer can be applied in BPR, knowledge management, application software development, workflow management, simulation studies, process benchmarking, and so on[1]. There are two main basic elements of behavior modeling. They are illustrated in Table 1[1].

name Activity Object store Icon

function

Object are consumed, generated, transported, or modified by activity.

Object store can store objects, visualise objects, or acquire states.

3.2 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database, it is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network (including the Internet). There are at least a dozen different editions of Microsoft SQL Server aimed at different audiences and for workloads ranging from small single-machine applications to large Internet-facing applications with many concurrent users. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL[5]. 3.3 Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs for Microsoft Windows, as well as web sites, web applications and web services. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms such as Windows API, Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Storeand Microsoft Silverlight. It can produce both native code and managed code.Visual Studio includes a code editor supporting IntelliSense as well as code refactoring. The integrated debugger works both as a source-level debugger and a machine-level debugger. Other built-in tools include a forms designer for building GUI applications, web designer, class designer, and database schema designer. It accepts plug-ins that enhance the functionality at almost every level—including adding support for source-control systems

Table 1. Main basic elements of behavior modeling.

(like Subversion) and adding new toolsets like editors and visual designers for domain-specific languages or toolsets for other aspects of the software development lifecycle[6]. 4. Reserch Framework & experiment The first, the research surveryed the shopping website of the Sun Fruit farm. The second, the research collected the information and data which would be important and needed for subquent processing. The third, the information and data are used to build the shopping processing model of the case, and the online booking system about selling fruit was surveyed by domain benchmark at the same time. The fourth, the model was analyzed whether the shopping and ordering process would be found the drawback and improving chance, and the original online booking system referenced the benchmark to redesign ordering website at the same time. The fifth, according to the improving chance of the origial model, the shopping model was redesigned by improving drawback, and it combined the rebuilding online booking website, too.The sixth, the redesigned shopping process and rebuilding online booking website were discussed and analyzed the improving result with present circumstance and prcoess. Above-mentioned steps were illustrated in Figure 3.

Case survey

Collect information and data

Build original shopping model and survey benchmark

Analyze model Redesign online booking system by the benchmark

Redesign shopping model

Analytics, discussion, and result.

Figure 3. The research framework and process flow chart.

According to the purpose promoting selling pitaya and improving ordering process, the research first sureyed the ordering process from the Sun Fruit farm and what kind of ordering methods are given consumers to choose. The Sun Fruit farm website is selected to survery initially. The website would provide useful information and ordering methods presently.Then the information can be organized to form a shopping model. The model was built by INCOME4, process simulating software. It is also called AS-IS process model. The next step, the research tried to find the shortcoming and processing improvement chance by AS-IS process model. At the same time, the online booking website could not be known whether it fitted and correspond the needs of the website users. For this reason, the research surveyed the benchmark about the shopping website of selling fruit domain. If the benchmark of shopping website of the domain gave the nice designing style or idea which consumers could be attracted by, the ordering website of the farm would accept and reference it, and redesign the website by the elements which were surveyed by the benchmark. The website rebuilt with Microsoft SQL Server2008 R2 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Through the AS-IS process model was analyzed, it would be tried to find the waste of the process. The waste indicated the processing improvement chance. Next step focused the improvement chance on the AS-IS process model to redesign and rebuild the shopping model. It was also called the TO-BE process model. Both AS-IS process model and TO-BE process model were called behavior model which represents process in using INCOME4 software. And new model includes the aforementioned improving website which was redesigned and rebuilt by benchmark shopping website.Finally, the research and experiment considered actual application to explain and justify whether the improvement could advantage both the seller and consumers or not. 5. Experiment result Through the case surveyed by internet, there were a lot of information which indicated that the shopping process of the farm was not corresponded to mainstream model presently, especially large number of consumers who have habit or consider convenience to shop by internet. So the case surveryed and surfed the benchmark of the domain in internet. The original ordering website, also called by AS-IS shopping and ordering website page, which is displayed in the figure 4[7]. was compared to the benchmark of the domain. To base on the foregoing reasons selected 水果三六五頂

級水果專賣店[2] and 阿洲水果行[3] to be the benchmark and rebuild the reference of online booking system. The new modeling website, called by TO-BE shopping and ordering website page, was built via Microsoft SQL Server2008 R2 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, the tools of building website. The result was showed in figur

5[3][4][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].

(a) (b)

(a)

(b) (c)

Figure 4. AS-IS shopping and ordering website page. (a) On half a page, (b) Under half a page.

(d) (e)

(f) (g) The case also built orders management into the shopping website for the seller who can easily manage the orders of the customers. They are showed in figure 6[3][4][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].

(a) (b)

Figure 5. TO-BE shopping and ordering website page. (a) Login page, (b) Register page, (c)

Membership page, (d) Shopping page, (e) Cart page. (f) Comfirm page, (g) Order page.

(c)

(d)

(e) The case used INCOME4 to build behavior process model. The research found the activities and object stores of the shopping process of the Sun fruit farm presently. From customers who visit the original shopping website to them who end the consume and leave it, the process was modeled by AS-IS process model which was illustrated by INCOME4 in figure 6 (a). By the AS-IS process model, the shopping process could know to exist three kind of ordering methods, by online booking, phone, and e-mail. According to the find in process, three kind of ordering methods could make the seller manage hard and difficult. Because orders came from online booking, the order would be directly stored in computer. The meaning was easy record and management. If orders came from phone, the seller might need to operate it indirectly. The meaning was the orders which needed to record first and then noted to the orders managing system. The orders came from e-mail had the same problem with phone. the shopping and ordering process was not efficient and economy for the order manager. So the research attempted to find the better solution about the ordering process for above reason. The process changed to receive the methods of the orders, online booking was major and e-mail was minor. Because the orders from e-mail must be operated by computer, it could type and enter to the order system soon. Both were operated by the same computer at the same time. Besides, the ordering process would be planned to contact customers and be the after-sales service by the methods, phone and e-mail. The shopping and ordering process was improved and redesigned by the aforementioned concept. The orders came from e-mail. The information of the customers would be directly typed and brought in the database which was built by Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. That would be managed easily. The improving process was modeled by TO-BE process model which was illustrated by INCOME4 in figure 6 (b)(c)(d).

Figure 5. TO-BE shopping and ordering website page. (a) Order Data page, (b) Order Item page, (c)

Order Customer page, (d) Product Information page, (e) Order Receipt page.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

The object model was also built by INCOME4. The models would not be changed by improvement before and after. But the information of customers will be directly stored in the database, which was built by Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, in the improving system. The model was showed in figuer 7.

Figure 6. Behavior process model. (a) AS-IS process model, (b) TO-BE process model, (c) TO-BE

Online bookin drill down, (d) TO-BE Login drill down.

Figure 7. Object model.

6. Discussion The theory of constraints, TOC, is the philosophy, kaizen or continual improvement. It focuses on identifing and controling constraints of the process or orgnization. The constraints on product line are called “bottleneck”. If it is not solved, the output of the system are not incremental[17]. According to experiment result and TOC, the bottleneck was expected to find out from the original shopping system. When the customers come into the system, they will have three kind of methods to deciede their orders. First, if the customers give the orders by online booking system, the follow-up process will be operated by computer. If they give the orders through e-mail, the seller will spend additional time to operate it.But the seller read the e-mail and operate it by the same computer in person at the same time. If the customers order the product by phone, the seller will answer the phone and note the detail of the orders.Then the sellers store the orders to the computer when they have free time and come to use the computer. It causes the waste to operate the order.Because the orders are finished by this process, it will take much waiting time to complete it and easily forget it. If this situtation happens, it will cause the loss of both the seller and customers. So this is the bottleneck of the system. That was illustrated in figure 8. The research found that the customers ordered by e-mail were minor. The cause might be that the customers would prefer to surf the shopping website and use the interface of the online booking at the same time rather than writing e-mail or calling additionally. So they order the product by phone are less. The research followed above reasons. The methods, ordering by phone and e-mail, adjusted to play a role who was resposnsible for contact the customers and after-sales service. That will improve the process efficiency and convenience. And the process combines the TO-BE shopping and ordering website. The website can see the figure 6(b)(c)(d). It will make the customers satisfy and content.

Finally, the research tries to campare the TO-BE shopping and ordering website with two benchmark. It was listed in table 2.The camparison can let researcher understand their difference.

Name of

website

水果三六五頂級水果專

賣店

阿洲水果行 TO-BE website of sun

fruit farm

Builder retailer retailer Farmer

cost expensive expensive cheap

register A little complexity A little complexity Uncomplexity

practicabilty High High unknown

Data safty unknown unknown low

Ordering

process

easy easy easier

Website

maintenance

Specialist treatment or

subcontract

Specialist treatment or

subcontract

The seller, no know-how

about IT. Maintenance is

not easy.

7. Conclusion and Suggestion Through the experiment result and discussion, the case researches. It draws the four

Three kind of methods for ordering Pitaya

Bottleneck! (Waste time and forget easily.)

Figure 8. The bottleneck of the original process

Table 2. TO-BE shopping and ordering website compares with the two benchmark

poit conclusions. (1) from simulating ordering process with Income4 , Improving the shopping process by website becomes more convenient. (2) Seller will be easy to manage their orders and ship their Pitaya to customer on time by the website. (3) Phone and E-mail will play roles of contact and after-sales service. But IN REAL WORLD both play operating orders is still requested by customers. So there are still keeping the two kind of ordering methods. (4) Save both seller and buyers' time and cost, and producer earns money, consumers gain satisfying merchandise. It will create win-win situation. The TO-BE website of the research was not built by the specicalist of IT domain. So there are still fuction design which is not complete, like ordering management pages which can record membership orders but can not provide the service to the non-membership. Maybe the case which has this function will help to promote the sale because the benchmark has provide this service. The TO-BE shopping and ordering website still have many improving places. Besides, the improving website does not apply in the real internet and world. This provides a advanced research chance. And it will justify the TO-BE process model and TO-BE website whether can be practiced. 8. Acknowledgement The final project can be completed. Professor Amy Trapppey guided the direction at twice term project presentation. Professor assisted student to constitude the frame of the final project clearer. My teammate, Rachel Liau, supported me to pass the eEI curriculum almost all semester. The teaching assistants, Acer and Ruby, replied my questions very patient almost anytime. Thank you. I rejoice and thank myself because I almost quitted this curriulum. 9. References [1]Amy Trappey, E-Enterprise Integration curriculum handout of IEEM of NTHU,

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