Infernowear is a new company run by a self-employed creative designer aiming to producing clothing at reasonable prices aimed at young teenagers who are into the skateboard clothing fashion.

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Pete Britten        Infernowear Database project        

Introduction:

        Infernowear is a new company run by a self-employed creative designer aiming to producing clothing at reasonable prices aimed at young teenagers who are into the skateboard clothing fashion. As this company has just been set up all orders are phoned through and then written down on any spare paper lying around. At the moment the owner has too much freelance work coming through and is unable to spend the time properly designing and implementing an order system even though he is quite capable. This system will be used to record orders as they are phoned through and also to keep track of the different garments and number in stock.

User requirements:

        Specifically the system should be able to carry out the following procedures.

  • Store the details of customers and their orders
  • Keep a list of all garments and garment logos
  • Record and update stock levels automatically after each order has been recorded
  • Ability to print out shipping labels for each order placed
  • Ability to expand the product range by adding new types of garment and garment logos to the system
  • Each logo and garment should have a simple product code that makes identification and inserting into the database easy and fast.
  • A search option should be included so that stock level and customer orders can be quickly displayed
  • A variety of data should be printed in reports including shipping labels and the order line.
  • As personnel details will be stored it is essential that the system is password protected so that it keeps this data safe and complies with the data protection act.

Feasibility study:

I will now carry out a feasibility study, as it is the first stage of the systems life cycle. After this I will then make a full detailed investigation into the current system and requirements of the new proposed system. The feasibility study will be based on the well know “TELOS” mnemonic for the five feasibility factors which are explored in depth below. This study covers all potential problem areas that could effectively stop the project from going ahead. It also covers the advantages that this new system would bring to the company after implementation.

Technical feasibility:

        There is nothing too complicated with the proposed system so I am sure that there is no technical reason why this new system can’t be built. There is also no problem why the system can’t be built in Access so I am confident that I will not have a problem with the technical side of this new solution.

Economic feasibility:

        As this new system is being built for my A level course I will not be charging the owner of Infernowear. As this is the case the benefits of having a well-made order system for free will defiantly out way the costs.


Legal feasibility:

"Appropriate security measures shall be taken against unauthorised access to, or alteration, disclosure or destruction of, the data and against their accidental loss or destruction"
            - section 2(1)(d) of the Act

This above act was taken from the data protection act; it states that security methods should be used to protect unauthorized access to personal details. As my system will be handling customer details including addresses and phone numbers it is essential that the system is password protected and secure.

        "The data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up-to-date"
                              - section 2(1)(b) of the Act

This next snippet from the data protection act states that all data held should be accurate and when necessary be kept up to date. As the Infernowear system will be holding customer details its important that it’s accurate. To do this validation rules will be introduced to key fields making sure that only numbers can be entered into a telephone number field for example. The act also states that the data held should be kept up to date where necessary. The data will only be updated when a customer makes an order, the telephone operator will ask if the data is up to date and correct. If the company expands it would be necessary to include an operation that would delete customer details after a prolonged inactive period of time where no orders where made.

Operational feasibility:

        This section looks at whether the right work practises and procedural infrastructure is in place to accommodate the new proposed electronic computer system. If not the implementation of this system would cause more problems than it would solve making the company less productive and probable lowing morel due to the newly arisen difficulties. After having a brief look at the current pen and paper work practises used by the owner I have decided that this new system could be implemented and would help to keep the whole operation tidy and all information in one place which is easily accessible and updateable. As the owner and user of this new system is already competent with Access there is no reason why there would be any difficulties with implementation.

This section also looks at the probable social repercussions once the system has been installed. As the company consists of one, (a creative freelance designer) I can see no negative side effects of implementing this new proposed system. The only thing that will change is that all orders will be booked using the computer system instead of using pen and paper. This will drastically improve productivity and the speed at which orders are placed, it will also increase reliability, as there is no fileing system at present of order and customer details.    

Schedule feasibility:

        The schedule feasibility looks at setting out a time frame for the completion of the proposed system. The deadline given is for a fully functioning system ready for implementation by Easter 2003 including an in depth high quality write up. I see no reason why this system cannot be ready for implementation by the time set out above. This gives me plenty of time to produce a complex fully functioning system as well as a well documented write up.


Analysis:

        Before I can continue I will conduct an initial investigation into the current procedures and work practises so that I can find out exactly what the new proposed data base system has to do.

Interview with Company Director Mr B Hull:

I conducted an interview with Mr Hull to discover in more detail what the current work practises are and what the new system has to do. I will use this interview method, as I will be able to extract large amounts of information from a single interview. I will not be using questioners because there is only one member of staff and I feel that interviews on the whole will be more productive.

Current work practises:

Orders:

                Orders are phoned through to Mr Hull on his own house number, these are then jotted down onto plain A4 paper. Each order consists of a garment type e.g. a hoodie or a T-shit and a logo like the orange Gecko or the flaming heart. After Mr Hull has several orders he contacts his printing suppliers. He places a master order consisting of all individual orders pays them up front and waits for the supplier to produce the order. After this the supplier ships the master order to Mr Hull who then distributes them to the individual customers.

        Payments:

                Payments are either made in cash or in cheque form. The cheques are either posted to Mr Hull or hand delivered by the customer, all cash payments are hand delivered. Mr Hull then adds the customers order to the master order and is sent to the supplier, this is explained in the above Order section. There is no record of payment once received except for a hand written note. This obviously needs addressing when designing the system, as strict records need to be kept about receiving payment.

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        Delivery:

                Once Mr Hull has received the master delivery form the suppliers he then breaks it down into individual orders and manually writes out address labels to go with each order. These are then delivered via the standard postal service or collected by the customer. There is also no record of what has been shipped and to whom. This will also be taken into account when designing the system.

Mr Hull’s idealistic view of what the system should be able to do:

Before I list what Mr Hull wants from the system there are a few new ...

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