Case Study: Improving Delivery Services With Cloud Technology

Requirements

The report talks about a business case study, of a company called AB Pty. Ltd. It manages a product delivery business for the area Austin downtown, Texas, USA. This company looks like a small scale business as it contains only three trucks for making the delivery of the products. The products are delivered to the customers of the specified zone. The company is facing a problem in the delivery service which is supposed to be identified and resolved.

The objective of this report is to deliver a solution based on cloud application, for solving the problem of delayed delivery services carried out by the trucks in the company. The proposed solution will be produced to design and deploy the solution plan. The solution has to be selected from the provided recommendations of the business analyst (Sadulov and Indihar S?temberger, 2016).

IBM Bluemix provides support to several programming languages, services and integrated DevOps. The purpose of this includes, building, running, deploying and managing applications in the cloud.

To create a dashboard for the application, go to the below link and log in:

https://idaas.iam.ibm.com/idaas/mtfim/sps/authsvc?PolicyId=urn:ibm:security:authentication:asf:basicldapuser

The aim is to create a cloud foundry application, to develop an application without the need of any infrastructure. Select SDK, for the Node, as mentioned in the below image. Then, open it and give host name for the application.

Create database as shown in the below figure.

In DB MySQL, a new Database must be created for establishing the connection for the database. Then, deploy the application.

The application’s instance will start, after connection is established between the database and the application. Then, do configuration.

The configuration file will be displayed on IBM Bluemix devops screen.

Once editing is completed, deploy the file and select the red button. Pop up window will open, to ask about redeploy the file. Select “Cancel” option.

Click on “OK” to open the window of GIT Repository. Then, commit the files using the “Commit” button.

The completion of procedure will result in displaying the modified details on the left side pane of the window.

If application created successfully, build and deploy stage will be created. Confirm the same with successful acknowledgement message.

Select, last execution result and deploy thesuccessful application message.

The case study is identified to have problem in the management of the product deliveries, for its customers. The number of deliveries being delivered in a day is getting reduced drastically. Initially, the trucks could manage to complete 5deliveries each day but, now it can only manage to complete 3 deliveries each day. This is a risky problem for the company, if it fails to meet the deliveries, then the number of pending deliveries will increase and ultimately result in customer dissatisfaction.

Requirements

Customer satisfaction as a major concern of this case study, the following requirements will have to be covered by the proposed solution:

Smart application to track the truck’s movement.

Management of the zones.

Management of allotting the product deliveries.

Crossing checking the completing of the assigned deliveries.  

Proposed System

Maintaining a communication with the drivers and the admin. 

Proposed System

The proposed solution will use IBM Bluemix services to develop a smart vehicle tracking application. Geospatial Analytics service will be used, to help with identification the zones. The following features are included:

The zones for the deliveries will be divided in terms of North, South, East and West.

Total deliveries will be divided among the available trucks.

The location of the trucks will be monitored throughout the product delivery.

Whenever required, communication will be established with the truck drivers.

Important notifications and alerts will also be shared among the administrator and the truck drivers.

Uncertain situations will be tried to resolve soon.

For the smart vehicle tracking application, the design plan is mentioned below:

Step 1:Search the website for IBM Bluemix services.

Step 2: Log in to the website.

Step 3:Internet of Things should be integrated with IBM Bluemix services.

Step 4:Configuration of IoT is required, next.

Step 5:The type of device, along with Id and name must be entered.

Step 6:Keys of new API must be generated, so choose the option “Add API.”

Organization ID: rl79j3

Device Type: Vehicle

Device ID: XYZ

Authentication Method: token

Authentication Token: [email protected]

Organization ID: rl79j3

Device Type: Vehicle

Device ID: XY

Authentication Method: token

Authentication Token: @Rk0&LQ+Vx8+4n&I2J

Step 7:Deploy the kit by downloading the starter kit.

Step 8:Create a clone of the project with its repository.

Step 9:Make changes to the code by selecting the option,“Edit code” i.e., change the file namedto, manifest.yml.

Step 10:Open config or settings.jsr file, and enter the following details:

Vehicle type, for iot_deviceType.

Organization’s ID (six-characters) for iot_deviceOrg.

Token and registeredID for iot_deviceSet

Created API key for iot_apiKey.

API key token for iot_apiToken.

Save the entered details.

Step 11:Create and configure Geospatial Analytics.

Step 12:Using IoT, select the option, “Create” and bind the starter kit with geospatial analytics. After completing this the following link could be accessed:

https://app-name.mybluemix.net/GeospatialService_start

Step 13: At the end, select the option “Alert”.

Go to the below link, to see the developed application: https://api.ng.bluemix.net.

The deployment plan includes the following:

Subsequently when the designing part has been done and finalized, the next step is testing. The test includes to communicate the truck driver and track the movement of the truck. To do this a command will be sent, using Set Property command. This command ensures to connect with the map applications. After the connection is established, the required changes to the properties of the applications can be made (Antonopoulos and Gillam, 2017).

Conclusion

AB Pty. Ltd.’s business case study has been analyzed by the business analyst and from the available solutions ICT Professional has selected a solution for the current problem. The issues relate to customer satisfaction and product delivery, using limited trucks. The business analysis’s investigation identifies that truck monitoring is required to manage the truck’s movement and tally with the deliveries. To accomplish solution a smart application is considered. To create the application IBM Bluemix is used. Thus, the report has produced the proposed plan for the same along with the required design plan and deployment plan. The outcome is a smart vehicle tracking system.

References

Antonopoulos, N. and Gillam, L. (2017). Cloud computing. Cham: Springer.

Sadulov, E. and Indihar S?temberger, M. (2016). Analysis of the IBM Bluemix platform in a cloud. Ljubljana: [E. Sadulov].