System Analysis for Carols Corner Store's Delivery of Goods and Efficient Movements of Products - Case Study Example

? System Analysis and Design Problem Carol’s Corner Store may be said to be a small retail shop that manages a couple of products that include drinks and food, personal care items greeting cards and magazines. Most of the food products may be said to come, and packages as the store does not sell its own produced food. From the interviews gathered from the owner of the store, Carol, it may be deduced that the store lacks a means through which, it may be able to control the shift of goods from the store at the back where they may often be stored to the front in order to display them prominently to customers. Failure to display them could result to a loss of customers to her immediate competitors thus resulting to the loss of a chance to increase her sales or it may also make the customers unable to deduce whether she may be selling the product that they need. In order to solve this issue within a minimal space that her store has she makes use of a limited storage space within the back of her store to stock a few extra product quantities so as to dodge running out of stock. This may be said to call for her employees’ help in restocking shelves often when need arises. Carol may also be said to have suppliers who make deliveries within a particular time scheduled by her and them; they may be said to be her store’s only opportunities to obtain supplies; thus there might be a need for a timely order of products. All these, in our view, could be extremely tedious and costly since she might often be forced to employ workers to help in the arrangement of goods within the display shelves. The key objective of this project may be to implement an effective DBMS, which would enable Carol: To keep an accurate product inventory, whether on display or within the store room; To alert Caro or her employees in case there might be need for a restock of the display shelves with goods from the store room, then later updating the inventory with the restocked amount; To making a preparatory timely placement order from every supplier; Business benefits and recommendation The primary business benefit that needs to be enjoyed from the use of the new system is for Carol’s store to maintain its level of competitiveness within the market at low costs. Other intermediate benefits may include: Improved record keeping Cut down on the errors brought about by the manual order processing Reduce the levels of staffing within phone-order and mail-order processing Cause increment of turnover through the tracking of popular items’ sales as well as slow movers. Efficient movement of products from the store to the display shelves thus resulting to more sales due to the consumer awareness created. Timely delivery of goods from suppliers, which would in turn result to an efficient flow of goods to consumers thus cutting down on deficits The creation of new channels of marketing as a result of efficient display and timely supply; After the review of the planning process, it could be recommended that the system be implemented. This could be because the cost incurred in its development may not exceed the advantages enjoyed by the store together with the community at large immediately the employee training process and the installation process are complete. This may be because it can be considered cost effective yet advantageous. System capabilities An extremely new and fresh Database Management System would be implemented, installed and further maintained. In order to ensure that the business benefits are obtained: This database would be sure to make a provision that may track as well as update information on inventory when products ought to be delivered, moved to the display shelves from the store room, sold or even entirely removed from the inventory. The database would also be able to make a provision of information about the products stocked within the store every time new supplies are made. This may, therefore, provide Carol with a perfect opportunity to make timely orders, effective displays as well as to cut down on the costs. The database would, therefore, require that items within the inventory must have information concerning the product name, minimum order quantity, barcode, supplier’s name, quantity accommodated by the display shelves together with the quantity accommodated within the store room. It would also ensure maintenance of history so as to suggest sales analysis and market demand forecasting. It would make provisions of customer transactions to be used for customer query. It would incorporate internet catalog and customer sale capability e.g. order and purchase tracking. It would have the capacity to handle substantial increments in stock volumes without any degradation It would support a continuous new order shipment within all the 24 hours of the day. Scope of system Description of the Project Background Alternatives a) Low End Solution i. Ensure maintenance of the current display system b) High End Solution ii. Make a contract of external service design, in the installation and training of new DBMS. iii. Making outsource of training the current employees of the store on how to operate a computer in order to be able to utilize the system. Recommended solution and its benefits It may be more adequate to make use of the low end solution in this case due to the fact that it may be extremely costly to take the employees through an extremely lengthy training process in enabling them learn the ways in which they could utilize the computer. In addition to this, Carol may not have reported any problem with her current system of display. The only issue might be the limited space and the rate at which the goods ought to be shifted to the display shelves in order to attract consumers. Having the present system of product shifting in mind, it may be crucial to note that overlooking the entire system for a new one may be extremely dangerous for the store since the shop owner together with her employees may find it extremely difficult to adopt to the sudden change in circumstances. This may in turn destabilize the business resulting to a negative outcome as regards sales. Another key benefit to the first approach would be the fact that the owner would find it extremely easy to train any other employee recruited into the store to run the system. Feasibility Assessment Economic Analysis Among the key advantages of selecting this system could be said to be the fact that there would be minimum costs incurred at all times. Every required PC software and hardware would be extremely free of charge since the store under review may not be able to take care of the costs required in the construction of the design. Since this project may be said to be spared most of its required fundamental costs including the PC equipment it could, therefore, be said to be extremely feasible. Carol’s store may be said to be a small retail store, but it also possesses a set budget as regards the incurred costs within every financial year. This, therefore, would have been an extremely humongous problem if it had to depend on itself for the finances that would oversee the purchase of new PC equipment. The store did not make a budget for this hence the project could not cut in the store’s financial budget hence; it may leave the store’s budget for many other developmental projects, which would need capital costs. Technical analysis There may be a number of technical risk factors related to this project. The key concern to the team working on the project could be said to be the fact that the only affordable donated equipment may not be extremely powerful to make a support of the proposed DBMS. Every PC, which would be drilled in the network, would be said to have unique requirements e.g. an allotted memory amount for the system together with the speed of the machine’s operation. The end users may not be willing to make operations on terminals, which might not have quick responses and consume lengthy durations to load programs. Another significant concern would be the fact that it may require user friendly design. The team would have to put in mind that the users of the system may not ne computer literate while designing the system. Key- the notification details must be easy to read, it should be easy to read the display screens while receiving deliveries etc. another technical concern would be the possibility of later or future upgrades. Carol will have to maintain the rapidly pacing technological trend in making necessary software and hardware upgrades. This would, therefore, require that the store puts this consideration within its future budget so as to ensure the system remains compatible and functional with the program. Use case diagram Use case Glossary Intermediate description The diagram may be said to represent the order management system that comprises of one use case, which may be the creation of a new order. This use case may be said to extend from order use case, hence may have extends relationship. A key additional point could be to point out the system boundary. From the diagram, the actor, (who might be said to be the order clerk) since he is considered an external system user, had to be placed outside the system. In this case, the customer makes a call to the store where he might get the order clerk who then verifies the customer’s information. In case the customer may be new to the store, then the clerk may be forced to invoice: remember the account information of the customer use case in order to make additional information. The clerk may then continue with the initiation of the new incoming order. When the customer makes a request on the addition of a new item to the order, the clerk simply verifies the existence of the ordered item within the store then adds it. The steps 5 and 4 would be repeated until all the ordered items are eventually included into the order. Once the customer makes an indication of the end of order, the clerk enters the same in the system and then the system does the computing of the totals. Once the customer makes payment, the clerk enters the amount within the system and the system makes the verification and finalizes the order. Customer support system The members of this group may be said to have undertaken a project, which involves the development of an application of a data base system for the program of volunteer outreach at Carol’s store. This database may be said to be required in the tracking of every volunteer, volunteer site, the total duration designed for the every work, possible and detailed volunteer sights. The following may be said to be the entities together with their attributes: 1. Customer: he could be said to be any individual who makes use and enjoys Carol’s products. He may be said to possess the following attributes: Attributes: Every customer would be uniquely identified through an identification number for everybody (personal ID). Personal, private information regarding each customer would be noted down and maintained. This may include his name, address, classification, telephone number, legal guardian, etc. Recommendation The problem of minimal space within a store may be said to have been the root cause of problems to most small scale retail traders. In these trying economic times, there might be a need to implement and employ various ways in which business operations could be managed smoothly without necessarily putting a strain on the budget. This system, therefore, would best serve such businesses without imposing so many expenses in the course of running transactions. Much as the system may sound appealing, it may be crucial to note that there might be a need to come up with future budgets that might take care of the need to make improvements on the current system as a result of the rapidly changing technological world. Any business that could be able to adhere to this may be said to be better placed than others within a market filled with competitors. Conclusion This report may be said to have enabled us to put down the process of designing a new system for Caro. It may be said that the system implemented would oversee timey delivery of goods together with efficient movements of products from the back stores to the display shelves. As a result, it would ensure a steady flow of customers due to their certainty of finding their desired goods in the store together with a steady flow of goods from the suppliers. The system, therefore, would be extremely efficient for Carol at a cost friendly basis. 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