Question

Kitchen Gadgets sells a line of high-quality kitchen utensils and gadgets. When customers place orders on the company’s Web site or through electronic data interchange (EDI), the system checks to see if the items are in stock, issues a status message to the customer, and generates a shipping order to the warehouse, which fills the order. When the order is shipped, the customer is billed. The system also produces various reports.

1. List four elements used in DFDs, draw the symbols, and explain how they are used.

2. Draw a context diagram for the order system.

3. Draw a diagram 0 DFD for the order system.

4. Explain the importance of leveling and balancing. Your boss, the IT director, wants you to explain FDDs, BPM, DFDs, and UML to a group of company managers and users who will serve on a systems development team for the new marketing system.

Answer 1

DFDs use four main elements to represent the flow of information within a system: external entities, processes, data stores, and data flows. Leveling breaks down complex DFDs for better understanding, while balancing ensures data consistency across diagram levels. Context diagrams and diagram 0 DFDs are used to represent system interactions at different levels of detail.

Step-by-step explanation:

Elements Used in Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs)

Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) are a tool used to visualize the flow of information within a system. Four key elements used in DFDs include:

1. External Entities: Represent sources or destinations of data outside the system. They are typically depicted as rectangles.
2. Processes: Show how inputs are transformed into outputs and are represented by circles or rounded rectangles.
3. Data Stores: Indicate where data is stored within the system and are usually shown as two parallel lines or an open rectangle.
4. Data Flows: Illustrate the movement of data between external entities, processes, and data stores, and are depicted as arrows.

Importance of Leveling and Balancing

Leveling refers to the practice of breaking down DFDs into further levels of detail, providing a more granular view of the system's processes. Balancing ensures that the data flows and stores are consistent across these levels, maintaining the integrity of the system's representation.

Explanation of Diagrams

Due to the nature of this platform, it is not possible to provide drawn diagrams. However, in a context diagram for the order system, you would represent the entire system as a single process, with external entities such as customers and the warehouse connected via data flows. A diagram 0 DFD would decompose the single process of the context diagram into multiple subprocesses, showing more detailed interactions with data stores and external entities.