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Introductory to Systems Analysis and Design-Final

Arty Farty Cinemas (AFC) is a cooperative of five cinemas, each with its own owners. There are five partners in the cooperative. Susan Sarandon and David Duchovny co-own two of the cinemas (the Bel Air Cinema and the Mango Chill Theatre), which show hip, modern films mostly to young audiences. Marcel Marceau, Greta Garbo and Billy Barty are co-owners of the other three cinemas. These include the Oceanside Cinemas, the Bogart Theatre, and Covent Gardens (an outdoor theatre). Oceanside Cinemas and the Bogart Theatre show foreign, classic, and other films while Covent Gardens shows a mixture of films, often including more mainstream hits. Susan and David collectively decide which films should show at Bel Air and Mango Chill. Greta and Billy collectively decide the films to show at Oceanside and Bogart. Marcel has sole responsibility for deciding the films for Covent Gardens.

When materials about upcoming films are received from distributors or film companies, they need to be distributed among the owners. Materials received about films include (1) emails, (2) references to web sites about films and/or ordering, (3) files, such as PDF or Word documents, graphics files, and even video files, and (4) hardcopy materials (e.g. posters and flyers). Based on the available materials and info about the films (title, director, main actors, plot synopsis, awards, reviews, etc.), when the films will be available, and costs, the owners collectively decide what films they will purchase (actually a rental, but called a purchase), for what dates, and for which cinemas. This information is communicated to Sharon Stone, the AFC office manager, who actually places the order. Once the owners and Sharon have drawn up the session schedules, the information is passed on to Charlie Chan and Howard Hawk, the cooperative’s advertising staff, who produce newspaper, website, and email advertisements (and hence also need access to film materials).

AFC is presently having difficulty (1) keeping track of all of the information and materials that they receive and use about available films, (2) providing the owners with easy access to the materials about each available film, (3) tracking which owners have viewed which materials and, for each owner, which films and materials he or she has viewed, (4) ensuring that all of the owners view the available materials, (5) communicating opinions and preferences about available films to the other owners, (6) scheduling films so that the different theatre resources are used efficiently and a minimum number of copies of the film are rented, (7) recording decisions about which films to purchase and when they are scheduled to be shown, (8) notifying the office manager (Sharon) of the decisions so that she can order the films from suppliers, and (9) providing the schedule and all the informational materials about films to the cooperative’s advertising staff (Charlie and Howard). They need a new system that addresses these problems and supports the above functionality.

The owners and staff members all currently have fairly new laptop PCs, which are each connected to the Internet via broadband (which they currently use to browse the Internet and to communicate with each other using email) and thereby to the cooperative’s existing web server. The PCs are equipped with large hard disks for holding video (film trailers, etc.) and are equipped with Microsoft Office 2010.