Date of Award

Fall 8-1-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS)

First Advisor

Ronghua Shan

Second Advisor

Zixing Shen

Third Advisor

Rodrigo Sarpi

Abstract

When Brigham Young University - Hawaii (BYU-H) was founded in 1955 the Food Service department was born. At that time they prepared food in a cafeteria style setting to a student body of 153 students. Fifty-seven years later, BYU-H has grown tremendously with a student body of more than 2,500 students in 2012. This growth has tremendously affected the Food Service department. A Microsoft Access database is being used to manage the Food Service department's inventory. Although this system has been used for years, the schools rapid expansion has caused it to begin to fall short in the sophistication the department needs. Research shows that the same issue Food Services is having with their Microsoft Access database is not uncommon. Research also shows that there are numerous types of databases, which all have different strengths and weaknesses, but it is up to Food Services to determine which database suits their needs. The department decided to use packaged database software called Foodco. Foodco provides the following features; user friendly, scalable, sales analysis, easy to create backups, recipe cost calculations and it will store the database in one location making changes easy and less prone to errors. The transition from Microsoft Access to Foodco started on May 18th of2012 and was finished on August 22nd of 2012. This project took a month longer than anticipated because the database had twice as many items as estimated. This meant twice as much work had to be performed, and each item had to be updated to meet Foodco's standards. The second reason for the delay was the limited work hours the part time inventory clerk could devote to the project. When the data transition and data updates had been made to align with Foodco's standards, the software was installed on every computer and employees where trained on how to use the software. The project was successful and the Food Service department are satisfied with the results. The second part of this project was aimed to revamp the Catering website. The goal was to dramatically improve the website by converting the static site to a dynamic site. The old static site contained outdated pictures, outdated contact information and menus in small font making them difficult to read. The new dynamic site allows customers to interact with the website in the following ways; updated images showing current food on all webpages, these pictures can be enlarged with the click of a mouse, a contact form is located on the contact us page and when the form is filled out by customers the information is emailed to the catering department and the specials webpage is linked to a Microsoft Access database using VBScript which allows the catering department to quickly and easily change the specials in Microsoft Access. Research shows that customers prefer to browse dynamic, interactive websites more than static websites. The website transition started on May 7, 2012 and was successfully completed on August 18, 2012. The transition took a month longer than anticipated due to compatibility issues encountered when connecting Dreamweaver to Microsoft Access. The catering department is happy with the results of the new website.

Comments

dsu-th-118

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