Exam Case - Sea Forest Seaweed can change the world - that's what Sea Forest founder and CEO Sam Elsom believes. In fact, after running a successful clothing label for a number of years, Sam packed it all in to grow seaweed, which is the main operation at Sea Forest. Why is Sea Forest growing seaweed? The seaweed cultivated by Sea Forest is called Asparagopsis. It is a red seaweed native to Australian Coastal waters. Sea Forest is the first to cultivate this seaweed at a commercial scale through both marine and land-based aquaculture. The main incentive for growing Asparagopsis is its effectiveness in reducing the production of methane (a greenhouse gas) in ruminant livestock, including cattle and sheep. It is claimed by Sea Forest that "animals whose diets contain 0.2% Sea Forest's [Asparagopsis] supplement will have methane reductions up to 98%", according to a recent scientific publication". This could drastically impact the effects of climate change. What is Sea Forest's Current Focus? In the early days, Sam focused on perfecting his product. However, the business is now starting its "rapid growth" phase. Because of this, Sam is focusing on three things: 1. Growing as much Asparagopsis as possible, 2. Developing a network of farmers that will pay to use its supplement product, and 3. Growing awareness of the benefits of Sea Forest's Asparagopsis supplement amongst major meat purchasers including supermarkets and restaurants, so that they may preferentially purchase product that has been fed Sea Forest Asparagopsis supplements. What does Sea Forest Need? To do this, Sam knows that he needs Business Intelligence on every aspect of his business, from the growth rates of Asparagopsis in different environments, to the preferences of potential primary and secondary customers, including livestock farms and the customers who purchase from those farms. As SeaForest's network for farmer customers grows, the company sets up a relational database to replace the existing spreadsheet record of the farmer's information and the sales transactions. This change allows Sea Forest to address the emerging issues about their "Quality of Data" as the amount of data grows. In class, you were introduced to 6 dimensions of the Quality of Data: a. Suggest TWO such potential Quality of Data dimensions that are likely to be violated by using a spreadsheet to manage a large amount of transactional data. Justify your suggestions with a brief explanation and a specific example. Note that your suggestions must be related to the nature of spreadsheets for this specific purpose. (9 marks) b. For each of the two violations given in your answer to part a, explain how the use of a relational database instead of a spreadsheet can avoid such violations. Support each explanation with a specific example of relational database design (eg. How the data is organised to minimise the specific violation). Note that your answer must be about how relational databases may address the short-comings of spreadsheets for managing large amounts of data, rather than the properties of relational databases that are not related to such short-comings. (6 marks)