The University of Zambia School of Engineering
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING MOBILE APPLICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN BY PHIRI, Ariel Henry A Dissertation submitted to the University of Zambia in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree in Masters of Engineering in ICT Regulation, Policy and Management 2016 DECLARATION I, the undersigned, declare that this has not previously been submitted in candidature for any degree. The dissertation is the result of my own work and investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by giving explicit references. A complete list of references is appended. Signature: ………………………………………………. Date: ………………………………………… i CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL This document prepared by ………………..……………………… is approved as fulfilling the requirements for the award of the degree of Maters of Engineering in ………………………………………………………… of the University of Zambia Examiner’s Signature: …………………………… Date: ……………………. Examiner’s Signature: …………………………… Date: ……………………. Examiner’s Signature: …………………………… Date: ……………………. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I praise and thank our Almighty God, the creator of Heaven and Earth, through our Lord Jesus Christ, for giving me good health, understanding and many other blessings during the course of my study. I am very grateful to Dr. Jackson Phiri who helped immensely and guided me with his knowledge and experience throughout my research to completion. I am also grateful for his continuous patience, support and encouragement. I am deeply indebted to Mr. Selvas Mwanza, Mr. Mubiligi, Dr. Simon Tembo, Dr Ackim Zulu and many others whom I consulted in the course of my research work. I am also thankful to my coworkers at Zambia Airports Corporation Limited for the encouragement and support. iii DEDICATION I dedicate this research to my loving wife, Gorret Chayuma Phiri for her untiring support, together with my children, Zilose, Stella, Almakio, Gloria Arianna and especially my daughter Deborah Tadala Phiri, who was born during the time I was writing this document. And not forgetting aunt Chrisbel Chileshe and the entire family for their support. iv GLOSSARY Abbreviation Description AMPS Advanced Mobile Phone System ASD Adaptive Software Development BREW Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless CDMA Code Division Multiple Access FOMA Freedom of Mobile multimedia Access GPRS General Packets radio Systems GPS General Packet Radio Services GSM Global System for Mobile Communication HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol ICT Information and Communication Technology iDEN Integrated Digital Enhanced Networks LTE Long Technology Evolution RFID Radio Frequency Identification SDLC System Development Life Cycle SMS Short Message Service TDMA Time Division Multiple Access UML Unified Modelling Language URL Uniform Resource Location WML Wireless Mark-up Language WSN Wireless Sensor Network WSN Wireless Sensor Network www World Wide Web ZNFU Zambia National Farmers Union v ABSTRACT The use of ICTs by way of developing mobile applications can go a long way in improving the small scale farmers and traders’ participation in trade. A mobile application that can be used by cooperatives to link traders and farmers, can reduce the need to travel in order to gather the agricultural commodities from rural areas, which can result in reduced exposure to road traffic accidents, loss of cash, lives and commodities. On the whole, reducing the cost of doing business and thus making peasant agriculture profitable. A survey was carried out at Soweto market in Lusaka and Libuyu market in Livingstone, where small scale traders and farmers were targeted. Questionnaires were distributed and oral interviews are carried out. It was found that 35.25% of the total number of respondents obtained their food commodities from outside their locality. This is one of the reason to establish the Food Supply Chain. The risks of not establishing a Food Supply Chain were seen from the results of the survey. These included risks associated with travel, where 30.5% of the respondents lost food commodities, and 91.6% traveled with large sums of cash. It was also found that 50.4% of the respondents use mobile money facilities and 75.25% use mobile phones when trading. The data show that the development of a mobile application was viable and would yield desirable results. A mobile application, called Smart Trader System was developed using a server which was connected to a modem. This system interacts with the mobile phone for the traders via SMS. The system was developed using NetBeans Integrated Development Environment, MySQL database and java development kit for windows. It has been implemented and tested. This application will go a long way to reducing the cost of doing business among the farmers and traders, who may be remotely located. Keywords: Mobile Application, Smart trader System, Traders, Farmers, SMS. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ................................................................................................................................ i CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL ...................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................. iv GLOSSARY ...................................................................................................................................... v ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................ x LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER ONE: .............................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Motivation and Significance of the Study ........................................................................ 2 1.3 Scope ................................................................................................................................ 3 1.4 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Aim ................................................................................................................................... 5 1.6 Objectives ......................................................................................................................... 5 1.7 Research Questions .......................................................................................................... 5 1.8 Research Contributions .................................................................................................... 6 1.9 Organization of the Thesis ................................................................................................ 6 1.10 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................................. 8 LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................................. 8 2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Review of the Literature ................................................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) ............................................ 8 2.2.2 Mobile Technologies ................................................................................................ 9 2.2.3 Web Technologies .................................................................................................. 20 vii 2.3 Technology used in the food supply chain ..................................................................... 22 2.3.1 RFID Technology ................................................................................................... 22 2.3.2 Bar Codes Systems................................................................................................. 24 2.3.3 Wireless sensor Networks ...................................................................................... 25 2.3.4 Mobile Technologies in use today .......................................................................... 26 2.3.5 Security .................................................................................................................. 29 2.3.6 Food Supply Chain................................................................................................. 30 2.3.7 Food traceability policy and regulation .................................................................