Case study- The Auckland Energy Case Study-Electricity Bill Processing System

1. Auckland Energy is a new electricity company which has just begun to offer power to the households

2. n West Auckland. It is expected that a large number of households will switch to use Auckland Energy

3. as their electricity supplier. The company is expanding its electricity infrastructure throughout the

4. Auckland Region. Currently, the customer bills are produced manually. The company produces

5. 4monthly customer electricity bills and parts of this process need to be automated. Due to a continuous

6. increase in their business activity, manually producing customer bills now impact their ability to deliver

7. customers their monthly electricity bills in a timely fashion. The company goal is to send the electricity

8. bill to all its customers by the end of the first working day in every month. Furthermore, Auckland

9. Energy has also discovered that due to work pressure, meter readers have incorrectly entered meter

10. data into the system. To successfully compete in the Auckland market, Auckland Energy knows that

11. they have to fix these two critical problems through automation. Auckland Energy has realised that a

12. services-based approach that incorporates smart meters is now needed to support their Electricity Bill

13. Processing System, which has to be developed and implemented at their Head Office in West

14. Auckland. The following is a brief description of their existing Electricity Bill Processing System

15. compiled based on interviews conducted with the Chief Executive of Auckland Energy.

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17. When an existing household decides to switch to Auckland Energy or an owner of a brand-new

18. dwelling chooses Auckland Energy as their electricity supplier, a customer record is created by their

19. Accounts Clerk and kept in their customer file.The customer file contains records of all its current

20. customers. When a customer cancels his/her account with Auckland Energy, their record is removed

21. from the customer file by the Accounts Clerk and entered into in the past customerfile. When

22. marketing campaigns are run by Auckland Energy to attract new customers, this file is used to identify

23. and target their past customers as well. At the end of every month,customer records from the

24. customer file are used to create meter reading lists.

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26. The meter readers visit households of current customers of Auckland Energy once every month to

27. read their electricity meters. Auckland Energy provides their meter readers with the meter reading

28. lists which identifies all their current customers on a particular street, in a suburb in Auckland. These

29. meter reading lists have customer details such as their customer number (assigned to each customer

30. by Auckland Energy), name, residential address, meter number, and a blank field for recording the

31. current meter reading.

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33. Every nine (9) months the management of Auckland Energy reviews and determines a new electricity

34. charge rate. It is the responsibility of their Revenue Manager to update the electricity charge rate in

35. their electricity charge rate file.

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37. When all the current readings have been recorded in a meter reading list for a particular street for the

38. current month, the meter readers bring the meter reading list into the Accounts Department at their

39. Head Office. The Accounts Clerk enters the current readings into a customer electricity meter

40. readings file which contains, for each customer, details of their previous readings.

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42. To produce current bills for customers, the system subtracts a customers previous meter reading

43. from their current reading,to find the total volume of electricity used for a period. This is multiplied

44. by the electricity charge rate which the accounts clerk finds in the electricity charge rate file. If this

45. is the first electricity bill for the customer, a charge for installation may be added, and sometimes

46. there is a maintenance charge.Installation and maintenance are done by Auckland Energys

47. Maintenance Department. These extra charges are supplied by the Maintenance Department, which

48. are included in the current bill together with any outstanding amount. The outstanding amount of a

49. customer is found in the outstanding bill file. All current electricity bills are kept in a current

50. customer bill file. The current bills are posted or emailed to their customers which shows their current

51. charge, extra charges (if any), and outstanding amount (if any). Their customers postal addresses are

52. kept in the customer file.

53.

54.Customers often prefer to pay by Internet banking or by direct debit. Auckland Energys customers

55. can also pay their electricity bill with their local banks. A list of deposits is returned by the banks. All

56. the customer payments are compared to the records in current bills file by the Accounts Clerk. The

57. customer bills which are paid in full are entered into in the paid bill file, and the current customer

58. bill and outstanding bill files are updated. Both these files are also updated with any partial

59. payments. The current electricity bills not paid by their due dates are transferred into theoutstanding

60. bill file.

3. Draw a context diagram that provides an overview of the Auckland motors case study, 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 Auckland motor case study. 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 (d). Note: Only include data flows, processes, and external entities that are relevant to this process (process of your choice). 7 marks