Engineering Homework Help

AAA Mechanics Ltd has tasked your team to develop the requirements for their vehicle mechanical service company

system. The system is to allow the company to record client information – their details (for example name, address, contact details), vehicle details (for example make, model, colour, registration), and service history (for example service dates and odometer readings, details of the services performed separated into labour tasks and parts used, the mechanics involved). The system must also keep records of the mechanics employed by the company – their personal details, their qualifications and special licenses, time sheet information, emergency contact details, supervisor details. The company has a pool of ten mechanics who are entitled to a rostered day off per fortnight and so the system must be able to produce a roster for the mechanics ensuring that there is always at least five mechanics working on a day and one mechanic available for emergency call in, in the event of illness or extra work demand. Mechanics can enter information into the system at any of five terminals to be placed in the workshop area; front office staff can enter information at any of two terminals in the front office; and roadway staff can enter details at an outside terminal on arrival of the client with their vehicle. The company also provides loan cars to clients on request and so must keep information on when loan cars are available for clients and who has a loan car at any given time and for how long. AAA Mechanics Ltd needs to manage an inventory of common parts and consumables that the mechanics use for jobs. Mechanics decrement the inventory as they use parts and consumables. The purchasing officer for AAA Mechanics Ltd needs to be able to check inventory levels at any time and order additional stock (typically via email to a supplier as necessary). However, the purchasing officer should also receive a warning email if stock levels decrement below a threshold. The system should be able to handle up to 5000 part numbers (a consumable also has a part number) and the purchasing officer set the thresholds for the warning levels for each part as they require. A part or consumable has a name, a number, a supplier and a minimum order quantity. AAA Mechanics Ltd has a finance manager who must be able to extract information related to car services and bills paid (clients pay the front office staff on completion of a job) as well as invoices paid to suppliers, for parts ordered by the purchasing officer. The finance manager prefers to use Microsoft® Excel® and MYOB® for accounting activities. AAA Mechanics Ltd has a marketing manager who needs to be able to set up mail out reminders to clients when their car might be coming due for a service and any special offers. The marketing manager also likes to use Corel® Draw®, as well as Microsoft® Excel®. There has been some consideration to giving mechanics a tablet computing device so that they can enter information more freely as they move around the workshop but there are concerns about the robustness of such devices (mechanics like to drop things) and the need for a local wireless area network – if possible this is desirable, but not mandatory. AAA Mechanics Ltd has an IT administrator to maintain the system, perform backups and set access permissions, for example. The team, apart from the IT administrator, finance manager and marketing manager are generally fairly IT illiterate and so need very simple user interfaces.

Identify and describe appropriate non-functional requirements for the system.