A method to develop the requirements analysis and specifications phase of integrated computer-based information systems for certified plant traceability

摘要

Worldwide certification programs aim at ensuring that healthy plants and propagating materials are produced and distributed. These productions usually require a number of sub-products deriving from various production centres, often located in different geographical sites. Consequently, computer-based information systems (CBISs) which integrate data from different production centres, are those suitable to obtain plant supply-chain traceability.This study proposes an iterative waterfall model to describe the life cycle of integrated CBISs for the traceability of certified plants for food, fresh fruit production and agro-processing industries. Furthermore, it puts forward a methodology to carry out the phase of requirements analysis and specifications(RAS) that is crucial for the development and implementation of integrated CBISs. In detail, the overall objective of this work was to overcome the problems deriving from the lack of standards in traceability procedures in the field of certified-plant supply chain. To this aim the proposed methodology incorporates the main principles and objectives of traceability defined within the European Standard UNI EN ISO 22005:2007, following the consideration that plant traceability systems could be relevant toimprove safety against the diffusion of severe plant diseases as well as to achieve a more effective product marketing. As a consequence, a contribution towards the improvement of competitiveness, efficiency and productivity of enterprises would be given. The developed methodology was applied to the case study of the Italian citrus-plant nursery chain that shows to have common elements with other worldwide certification programs. Therefore, the results achieved in this paper could constitute guidelinesfor developing the RAS phase of integrated CBISs for citrus-plant nursery chain traceability in other major producing countries.