Appendix A - The Auckland Energy Case Study- Electricity Bill Processing System Auckland Energy is a new electricity company which has just begun to offer power to the households in West Auckland. It is expected that a large number of households will switch to use Auckland Energy as their electricity supplier. The company is expanding its electricity infrastructure throughout the Auckland Region. Currently, the customer bills are produced manually. The company produces monthly customer electricity bills and parts of this process need to be automated. Due to a continuous increase in their business activity, manually producing customer bills now impact their ability to deliver customers their monthly electricity bills in a timely fashion. The company goal is to send the electricity bill to all its customers by the end of the first working day in every month. Furthermore, Auckland Energy has also discovered that due to work pressure, meter readers have incorrectly entered meter data into the system. To successfully compete in the Auckland market, Auckland Energy knows that they have to fix these two critical problems through automation. Auckland Energy has realised that a services-based approach that incorporates smart meters is now needed to support their Electricity Bill Processing System, which has to be developed and implemented at their Head Office in West Auckland. The following is a brief description of their existing Electricity Bill Processing System compiled based on interviews conducted with the Chief Executive of Auckland Energy. When an existing household decides to switch to Auckland Energy or an owner of a brand-new dwelling chooses Auckland Energy as their electricity supplier, a customer record is created by their Accounts Clerk and kept in their customer" file. The customer" file contains records of all its current customers. When a customer cancels his/her account with Auckland Energy, their record is removed from the customer file by the Accounts Clerk and entered into in the past customer" file. When marketing campaigns are run by Auckland Energy to attract new customers, this file is used to identify and target their past customers as well. At the end of every month, customer records from the "customer" file are used to create meter reading lists. The meter readers visit households of current customers of Auckland Energy once every month to read their electricity meters. Auckland Energy provides their meter readers with the meter reading lists which identifies all their current customers on a particular street, in a suburb in Auckland. These meter reading lists have customer details such as their customer number (assigned to each customer by Auckland Energy), name, residential address, meter number, and a blank field for recording the current meter reading. Every nine (9) months the management of Auckland Energy reviews and determines a new electricity charge rate. It is the responsibility of their Revenue Manager to update the electricity charge rate in their electricity charge rate file. When all the current readings have been recorded in a meter reading list for a particular street for the current month, the meter readers bring the meter reading list into the Accounts Department at their Head Office. The Accounts Clerk enters the current readings into a customer electricity meter readings file which contains, for each customer, details of their previous readings. To produce current bills for customers, the system subtracts a customer's previous meter reading from their current reading, to find the total volume of electricity used for a period. This is multiplied by the electricity charge rate which the accounts clerk finds in the electricity charge rate" file. If this is the first electricity bill for the customer, a charge for installation may be added, and sometimes there is a maintenance charge. Installation and maintenance are done by Auckland Energy's Maintenance Department. These extra charges are supplied by the Maintenance Department, which are included in the current bill together with any outstanding amount. The outstanding amount of a customer is found in the "outstanding bill file. All current electricity bills are kept in a "current customer bill file. The current bills are posted or emailed to their customers which shows their current charge, extra charges (if any), and outstanding amount (if any). Their customers' postal addresses are kept in the "customer" file. Customers often prefer to pay by Internet banking or by direct debit. Auckland Energy's customers can also pay their electricity bill with their local banks. A list of deposits is returned by the banks. All the customer payments are compared to the records in "current bills file by the Accounts Clerk. The customer bills which are paid in full are entered into in the paid bill" file, and the current customer bill" and "outstanding bill" files are updated. Both these files are also updated with any partial payments. The current electricity bills not paid by their due dates are transferred into the outstanding bill" file. Read the case study carefully and answer the following questions. 1. List the external entities in the case study. You may find useful to list the line numbers where the external entities are found. 3 marks 2. Identify the inputs and outputs from the system. Relate these to the external entities you listed in part (a). List them in the space provided below. 5 marks Inputs no. From external Line Outputs external Line entities no. entities List the external List the outputs List the external entities here here entities here List inputs here 3. Draw a context diagram that provides an overview of the Electricity Bill Processing System, illustrating the system as a single process with its inputs, outputs and external entities, from your answer in part (b). 8 marks 4. Draw a top (high) level data flow diagram that illustrates all the processes, inputs, outputs and external entities of the Electricity Bill Processing System. Remember to indicate those external entities and data storage that are repeated. 17 marks 5. Draw a second (low) level DFD of a process of your choice, which you have with the top (high) level DFD in part (4). Note: Only include data flows, processes, and external entities that are relevant to this process (process of your choice). 7 marks