5 Evidence of Requirements:
5.1 It is very important that the manual system where the shop owner (Mr Khan), it is essential to manually assign quantities and items to deliver the items on demand. Rai’s Newsagent operates on a very small scale and relies on a manual method of storing stock items. A change in prices requires amending and updating stock values. Since the current process is to manually take account of this, the shop owner will have to go through this repetitive process and it will take a very long to complete this process. Keeping information of stock items within the shop takes up storage space.
5.1.1 It is thus important to understand an implementation of a relational database, which will store data accurately whilst proving easy to use. As the shop owner is not completely I.T illiterate, a relational database implementation would not require much knowledge of its operation. There will also be a users manual provided in addition to the system to help guide Mr Khan in case of an emergency.
6 Context Description:
In simple terms it is a Newsagent business and it concentrates on how stock control is an essential part of its operation. It is customary that Mr Khan has complete control over the order of confectionary items as well as newspaper and magazine deliveries, information of such consistent item quantities are difficult to get hold of. The nearest competitor to Rai’s Newsagent is within a 500-metre radius, and demand for items among local residents is high. Mr Khan’s newsagent is situated on a main road in Ealing, West London. This newsagent sells a variety of products that range from Tobacco, confectionery and stationery. The small organisation has formed a relatively good relationship with its local customers. The majority of sales revenue is gained from the counter sales.
7 Research method:
In order to realize and implement a relational database to ease the stock control of items such as confectionary and stationary, attention must be given to the user requirements. Therefore I will interview certain representatives from Rai’s Newsagents and will try to discover the user’s needs. Due to the user’s I.T incompetence, research into user-friendly interfaces and how this can be accomplished within a database environment will also be conducted. A variety of database software will have to be consulted before deciding on the correct environment that would help satisfy user requirements. Although it is only after discovering the user requirements, that this idea can be researched.
8 Brief Product Description:
The aim is to implement a relational database system to help the stock control of all the items in the shop. The product will include only one security level as there will only ever be one user (Mr Khan). The intended implementation of the database will allow the Mr Khan to view, edit and print information like for example customer details. To prevent data redundancy, validation features will be implemented to prevent Mr khan from entering and storing incorrect data. A report summary regarding stock orderable from suppliers will be achieved through merging information from the database into a word document.
- Deliverables:
- Report of interview conducted with Mr Khan owner regarding implementation of database.
- Specify the design, of the relational database system including the features that are going to be implemented.
- Produce a working prototype of the database system to show to Mr Khan.
- User-test the system with Mr Khan.
- Report on user feedback from both Mr Khan.
- Produce a final version of the relational database system.
Outcome/Product Evaluation Approach
The result of my project will be to create and implement a relational database to help the stock control of the entire shop. To guarantee that all aims and objectives have been fulfilled through the design and implementation stage, a benchmark approach is going to be used. This will involve comparing the aims and objectives with the final version of the relational database in order to find out whether these have been fulfilled. The database system will also be user tested, this will be done so that any weaknesses if any can be identified and then corrected and improved.
- Resources
The resources I will need for my system will be an up-to-date computer with the latest edition of Microsoft Windows XP. This will be necessary because Windows XP is very basic to use and very reliable to understand. Windows XP is also a plug and play operating system, which basically means that any hardware attached to its USB ports will instantly be recognised by the system. This means the owner will be able to back up all the relevant information on a storage device such as a portable hard drive which look like lipsticks. The software package that will be installed with the system will be Microsoft Office XP. I will be using this package as this offers the best database developer in Access. With Access XP the owner will be able to:
- Produce the correct tables, which will be able to store information on stock
- Produce the correct forms for deliveries
- Produce the correct Reports
- Produce the correct Queries, which will show which items need to be ordered
With Microsoft Office the owner will also be able to use its other features and resources such as Word and Excel.
12 Reference List:
Broad, (2004),
Bibliography
Project Plan
This will be my project plan and it will illustrate all the stages I will undertake to complete the system. The plan will be shown as a Gantt chart, which will show the tasks on the y-axis on the side and the weeks on the x-axis going across the bottom. The final deadline date for the project is as yet unconfirmed.
