The development of a local area network: a systems engineering approach

The Go-Figure Company has the problem of consolidation and coordinating its current office resources. Go-Figure has grown from 10 employees to an employee base of 50 in a three-year period. During this growth, Go-Figure has become uncoordinated in their office, maintaining several separate databases in several applications on several platforms. Considerable effort is expended translating and transferring data among the databases. There is duplication in the databases where there should be one. Additional equipment has been added as growth demanded, but without any consistent plan. Go-Figure has no connectivity to the Prime Contractor's main office, which is located in a different facility.

This project reflects how the system engineering process is implemented to modernize Go-Figure's existing system, eliminating as much duplication as possible, and allowing the sharing of electronic data and resources. Go-Figure has a significant investment in PCs and software, which it desires to preserve.

Section 1 discusses the definition of need, acknowledgment of deficiencies, request for services, questions related to requirements, and cost parameters. A series of memos reflecting the development of the definition of need is located in Appendix A. The conceptual design is then developed, based on the feasibility study performed. Top-level operational requirements are established, along with a cost analysis, and a system maintenance concept.

The preliminary design is accomplished in Section 2, and is based on the information derived from the dialog between Go-Figure and Wide Insight Engineering. This information is broken down into four subsections.

Section 3 reviews the proposed preliminary design, along with the logistical support function. Training is discussed in this section.

Section 4 reviews the detail design. It primarily mentions the tracking of the Office LAN's system activity and anomalies that may occur. Once the system is operational, the results of these trends will be the basis upon which enhancements and upgrades to the new system are recommended in the future, when requested by the customer.

Section 5 discusses the conclusion and final system recommendations.