Development of a Cloud-Based Enterprise Resource Planning System
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Overview
Gompei’s Goat Cheese, also known as GGC, is a non-profit, student-run business at Worcester Polytechnic Institute that supports student scholarships and teaches students how to apply entrepreneurial skills. The students of GGC volunteer year-round to learn the intricacies of running a small business. They sell 10 flavors of award winning goat cheese produced by Westfield Farm in Hubbardston, MA, and donate all proceeds to the WPI Global Scholarship Program.
The current operations structure within GGC creates harmful inconsistencies between their records and their partner farm’s records, which impacts the fulfillment of orders.
The goal of this project was to initiate the development of a cloud-based enterprise resource planning system for Gompei’s Goat Cheese (GGC) to enhance and expand its operations. Interviews conducted with key stakeholders led to the formulation of a set of system requirements and designs tailored to fit GGC's specific needs. This project provides a foundation for the future system that will support GGC, offering benefits such as heightened transparency, centralized order and invoice tracking, and improved communication with their partner farm.
Fall 2021 GGC Team
Learning Opportunities
The project leveraged a variety of modern web development skills and tools to analyze requirements, design an ERP system, and begin building a cloud-hosted prototype. Key skills included interviewing, diagramming, UI prototyping, database modeling, API development, and frontend programming using leading technologies like Figma, React, GraphQL, and AWS. The project provided hands-on experience with analyzing business needs, designing flexible systems, and rapidly developing modern web applications.
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Requirements gathering and analysis through stakeholder interviews
Systems analysis and design including use cases, data flow diagrams, entity relationship diagrams, data dictionaries, and mockups
Database design and modeling
API development with GraphQL
Front-end web development with ReactJS
Prototyping user interfaces with Figma
Cloud services and hosting with AWS Amplify
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Zoom for remote interviews
Figma for diagrams and prototyping
ReactJS for front-end
GraphQL for APIs
AWS Amplify for cloud hosting and services
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Requirements analysis
Systems analysis and design
Relational vs. non-relational (NoSQL) databases
REST vs GraphQL APIs
Component-based UI development
Cloud computing and services
Prototyping and iterative design
ERP and business systems
System Redesign
The proposed system name: Gompei’s Operations and Accounting Tracking System, or “G.O.A.T.S.”
Data Flow Diagram of Current Operations
Data Flow Diagram of the Proposed System
Database Design: Logical Entity Relationship Diagram
System Prototype (Figma)
Winner of the WPI Business School Provost’s Award
These awards offer recognition to those students who have completed outstanding Major Qualifying Projects as a demonstration of their competency in a chosen academic discipline. Each academic department conducts its own competition to select the winners. This project won the Provost’s Award within the WPI Business School.
The competition consisted of 23 project teams. For the preliminary round, each team delivered a 5-7 minute PowerPoint presentation to one of four panels of judges, followed by a 5 minute question and answer session. From each panel of judges, a finalist was chosen. These chosen teams advanced to the final round, where they delivered more comprehensive presentations to a distinguished panel of judges, as well as the rest of the project teams. The evaluation process considered various criteria such as project innovation, methodology, and overall impact. After careful deliberation, our project emerged as the recipient of the Provost’s Award within the WPI Business School.
Chris Guerrette and Natalie Mohn, the 2022 GGC ERP Project Team.