Reference no: EM133353806

Case Study: Mr. X loves chocolate! His mother's homemade chocolate bars were very famous in the city, and everyone was happy to buy them. Although the income was not much, the money his mom made did help supporting the family. In 1998 Mr. X decided to turn the random chocolate sales into a family business. Mr. X arranged for three suppliers. Supplier 1 (S1) was providing different types of chocolate molds, Supplier 2 (S2) was in charge of the cooking ingredients, and Supplier 3 (S3) was providing the packaging for the final products. Mr. X and his two brothers built three small production factories (compounds) located in two different cities. Compound A and compound B are both located in the city where Mr. X's mom started the business, and although being far away from each other, both are being supplied by S1. Compound C was built in the neighboring town where Mr. X's two brothers lived and was supplied by S2. Because S2 was only 15 min away from compound B, it was often used by Mr. X to provide resources to compound B as well. The third supplier, S3 was associated with all three factories A, B, and C, assuring the arrival of all respective packing sets. It also had sub-suppliers able to source molds and/or cooking products thus was used in case of S1 or S2 supply failure. All suppliers worked independently and because of their additional ability to back-up each other, they managed to successfully provide all different resources as planned. Mr. X was happy dealing with S1, S2, and S3 and did not want to change or lose any of them. As final stage of the production process, the ready chocolate products were distributed for sale to three different shops: M1, M2 and M3. The three shops had established reputation on the market and dealt with a respective type of clientele. To match the clients' expectations Mr. X had to send the chocolates based on a specific criterion. M1 shop was well known with the exquisite taste of its products, M2 was a gift shop, and shop M3 being located by a popular amusement park, was celling a wide variety of sweets and candies. Mr. X starts its production lane at compound A. The chocolate bars produced there are sent to shop M1 only if they match specific taste quality margins. Being a gift shop the owners of M2 insisted on particular type of packing - luxury boxes, ribbons, and attached gift cards. Mr. X and his associates had to make sure that only gift-wrapped products are being sent there. When shop M1 receives complaints about the taste of the chocolate products, they send them to compound B for modifications. If the complaints are related to poor packing, the products are being sent to compound C. Shop M2 does exactly the opposite - products that require new packing are sent to compound B, and all expired or taste-quality complaints products are sent for modifications to compound C. Both manufacturing companies, B and C ship the improved products to shop M3. Shop M3 is the only shop Mr. X deals with, which has the capacity to improve packing and quality of the products in addition to selling them. Mr. X's sales analyses indicate that due to constant improvement of products quality and variety, the demand for his chocolates remains high. Unfortunately, they also indicate that Mr. X has a lot of additional expenses related to maintenance of the compounds, shipping cost and storage. He soon realizes that he needs to review the use of all facilities and close or combine some of them. In a search for an optimal solution Mr. X sends an RFP and the company you work for wins the bidding. You are being assigned the task to review, analyze and propose an improvement plan to Mr. X.

Question
1 How to state-transition diagram that reflects the current business structure Mr. X applies. Instructions: Give a formal definition of the current FSA. (Hint: see your notes from FSM Lecture.)

2. Identify if it's possible to perform minimization of the business processes. (Hint: clarify if Mr. X is using DFA or NFA model.)

3. Rearrange the current state-transition model and propose a minimized model supported with state-transition table and diagram that indicate improved use of his facilities and assure minimization of his expenses. Instructions:
Give a formal definition of your proposed DFA.

4. Using SIMILAR 7-steps life cycle, proposal that illustrates clear understanding of Mr. X's problem (i.e. it entails identifying customers, understanding customer needs, establishing the need for change, discovering requirements and defining system functions).
Instructions:
a) what is the problem and the life-cycle stages.
b) what is a problem definition