RFID Tracking and Planning System

The client

This is a UK client who is the pioneer in the transfer of e-science to e-business by exploiting the potential of next generation computing technology.

What the client wanted

The client intended to develop a RFID tracking and planning system which was used to track the manufacture of aerospace parts that were processed through pipelining utilizing RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification). The whole system was required to include six components involving sales order processing (SOP), touch screen, operation real-time tracking, planning and scheduling, management reporting and customer tracking & reporting.

Solution

Abstract Technology was involved in this project from the analysis through design, implementation and test. This project was carried out via two phases. In the first phase, Abstract Technology's engineers concentrated on the system's core components: the SOP and the real-time tracking.

Firstly, a high level analysis of the requirement was undertaken followed by the detailed design of the system. This was a role-based system with seven kinds of actors who were able to access to the system with different functions. The SOP was a complicated business process which provided sales order processing function. User could create new order, split job into batches, create job card, purchase order, invoice and delivery note. Our engineers ravelled the relationships between entities and clearly understood the course of sales order processing. The purpose of the touch screen module was to utilize human intervention to complement the real-time production information captured from RFID devices. The main deliverables were Analysis and Design Report, modified Prototype Design according to the requirement's change and Use Cases.

The presentation tier consisted of Windows Form front-end and Web Page front-end. The Windows Form front-end was used to manage SOP and touch screen, and the Web Page front-end was mainly responsible for real-time tracking. Business facade provided common interface to Windows Form and Web Page. Common Data Access included all access functions to retrieve, delete, insert as well as update data and Common Utility module provided some utility functions used by other layers.

The technologies and development tools were as follows:

• Running environment:
  Hardware: server which supports Window Server + IIS
• Software tools:
  Source code control: Visual Sourcesafe
  Defect tracking: TestDirector
• Development tools:
  Programming language: .VB.Net
  Database Server: SQL Server 2000
  Application Server: IIS + .Net Framework

Benefits

Abstract Technology's solution resulted in a highly flexible system for complex sales order processing and real-time tracking. The successful completion of the first phase built a good base for the following development, which saved much development time and costs.

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