Creating a computer system for a video rental shop

Authors Avatar
sis

Introduction

ABZ World is a video rental shop, located in Stoke Newington town centre. It is a relatively small shop and has 300 members, who live in and around Stoke Newington. The shop is owned and managed by Abdullah Elgayar. He set up the business two years ago and has two other staff working in the shop on a part time basis.

Abdullah currently has a filing system that occupies a great deal of space and is very time consuming to analyse. He gives his members cards and has to manually record which video members are hiring. The old paper filing system is very inefficient in notifying when members are overdue with bringing the videos back. This in turn means other customers are unsatisfied when the video they want isn't in stock and so Abdullah loses out on revenue. His shop has not got much space and the filing system is taking 1/4 of the shop floor, more spaces are needed for videos and the shop at the moment is looking crap and tight costumes feel isolated and do not get to look around and look at covers of videos as the shop can get cramp, card board standing posters have been scraped this makes advertisement of movies hard. Costumers will not know when the new videos have arrived this make business in his shop go down.

More and more children are coming to the shop and Abdullah says "I have very little movies for young children if I don't sort it out they will go someplace else.

He is also opening another Abz World in wood green centre about 15 miles away and he would like to link up both shops.

Abdullah possesses greater than average IT skills and is keen to introduce a computer-based system for the rentals of his videos. If we make both shops have a computerized system Abdullah will be able to link both shops and have plenty of space for videos and advertisements and costumers can return videos in both shops.

The system both old and new is needed to:

* Keep track of members and their details.

* Keep track of the number of videos each member of staff rents out to customers.

* Have a listing of all the staff in the shop

* Have a list of all the videos in stock

* Have a list of all the videos rented

* Enable a showing of which videos are rented by which customers

* Show when the video is due back

* Be able to add/delete members, videos and staff

* Link up both shops

Investigation Methods

An interview was arranged with Abdullah and a list of points to be discussed was drawn up before the interview. Also I contacted Abdullah by telephone and e-mail to pick up certain points.

Topics for discussion:

* The reasons for requiring the new information system

* The problems with the current manual system

* The methods currently used to record data

* The information that needs to be kept in each of the following areas:

Staffing

Videos

Rentals

Members

Video costs

* The required output

* Any hardware or software limitations - for example what was the hardware and software to be used?

* The budget (Money wise)

Summary of the Interview

The nature of the paper-based system was discussed. Basically everything including customers, videos, staff and rentals are all written out manually onto a standard form every time something needed to be updated.

There are a few problems with this filing system:

Keeping track of when videos are due back.

Because all the data is kept in files you must continuously check if people are not bringing data back. Obviously this can be very time consuming and errors are likely to be made, resulting in lost videos, lost assets and revenue. It is also not immediately obvious when a date is overdue because there is so much writing on the forms and so you cannot always see an overdue video.

Seeing how well the staff are doing.

There is nothing in the old system that tells Abdullah how well his staff are doing. If he knew how many videos his staff sold each month he could perhaps reward them with bonuses or even employee of the month awards.

Stock levels.

It can also be a nuisance for Abdullah to go into the storeroom to get a video only to find that the video has already been rented out. There is no way to check if the video is in or out before he goes into the storeroom. This can be quite serious because while he is in the storeroom it can leave the shop unstaffed with potential thieves in the shop.

The amount of time it takes to document a new member.

With the manual system it can be very time consuming, just entering data for the new member. The form has no tick boxes and Abdullah has to write it all in full by hand.

There are no links.

All the different files are all kept separate from each other and so there are no links between: The video the person who rented the video and the staff member who rented the video out. If these files were linked relevant data and information could be retrieved.

Concluding Remarks

Mr Elgayar the end user is used to his position and is suffering from a paper based management system that is inefficient. Abdullah realises his problems and is very willing to become more efficient in his workplace.

Objectives for the New Systems

Qualitative

. Data entry should be as intuitive as possible.

2. The input screens should explain themselves.

3. Data entry should be quick.

4. The mechanics of the application chosen should not be apparent to the user.

5. A main menu should be loaded automatically when the database is loaded, and the whole system should be menu driven.

Quantitative

. It should be possible to rent a video without referring to video or member input screens.

2. It should be possible to input new videos, staff members, and customers in less than thirty seconds.

3. It should be possible to provide reports in less than 60 seconds in each of the following areas:

* Videos rented

* The staff that rented the videos out

* Staff currently employed

* Videos owned by the store

* Customer details

System the video shop is using now:

They have files in a filing cabinet in alphabetical order of name and ID number and have forms which are filled out when a video is taken out and returned and they will also have the history of the customer.

e.g.

To add a new member they use this form:

Constraints

Hardware

This report explains the specification of the proposed Computer that the library will need buy, and the advantages and disadvantages of buying these computers.

Midi-Tower Case ATX

This is a stylish steel case. Both side's are spring loaded and easily removed by pulling the handle on the side panel.

It is more compact and takes less space compared to old cases.

This is the casing that holds all the components, and is the case that all peripherals connect to, such as the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers.

The weakness point it can not take as many hardware as the bigger version

ATX Motherboard.

The ATX motherboard rotates the orientation of the board 90 degrees. This allows for a more efficient design, with disk drive cable connectors closer to the drive bays and the CPU closer to the power supply and cooling fan, an ATX motherboard is required to use the newest Intel processors.

This is board that hold the core components of a computer and connects them together. The CPU, graphics card, sound card, Hard drives all connect to the motherboard.

ATX power Supply

This is the power supply that powers the computer. Connects the main 240V and converts it 16V. It powers components inside the case, such as the motherboard, hard drives, DVD drive, and floppy drive. Gold plated connectors provide perfect conduction. Also it is noiseless.

Intel Pentium III 1GHZ Processor

This is the main part of the computer. It is a hardware component, which act upon instructions to process, input and output information. It determines the speed of the computer, and the software that can run on the computer. A P3 1GHz processor can handle multimedia applications, it will suit the leisure centre as they will not require extensive applications.

28MB SDRAM

Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. This is the memory that computer uses while running, its non permanent and all is lost once the computer is turned off. The memory is used for running applications, the more the memory the better. It is slower than the new 512MB DIMM but cheaper.

20GB HDD

This is the size of the Hard drive that stores user data and installed applications. It would be more suitable if twice that hard disk space was used. As the price difference would not be that much different.

Audio Controller

This processes the Audio output from applications, a speaker must be connected to hear the sounds. This would work well for the leisure centre. A more advanced card such as one that outputs digital surround sound will not be needed as it is only a luxury addition which is not necessary important for the centre.

Integrated 56k V.90 modem

This is the modem that converts digital signal to analogue and sends across the telephone line. It connects computers to Internet Service Providers (ISP) such as AOL and Freeserve by a normal telephone line. It has no use in a network environment since the computer will be connected via the Ethernet Cards to a server. And the Server will be connected to the internet for outside connection to web for web browsing. The connection by a modem is slow, ADSL or Cable connections would be more suitable for the leisure centres as more then one computer can use the internet and it will run much faster.

Intergraded 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN

This is the network card that can connect two computers together, or connect a computer to central server. It will allow file sharing and peripheral sharing such as a printer.

8xDVD-ROM drive

For accessing DVD-ROM disks, that can hold information as much as 16GIGS on one disc. Eight speed is sufficient for the leisure centre as they will not be copying DVD's so will not need a faster one.

Windows XP

The operating software is the back bone that other software run on, and is used for management of user information.
Join now!


The weakness of Windows ME is that some software programs will not function properly and some of the new software would not run on it at all. It will suit home user only and does not suit business organisation.

2 months Collect and return warranty(up gradable to 3 years)

This covers the computer for any faults that may occur. If a fault occurs then the computer is collected and returned once fixed without any charges.

05 key WIN XP keyboard

Standard keyboard for input data which is transferred to the computer. But the keys ...

This is a preview of the whole essay