A) We cross off the rental on the hire form.
Q) How do you know that all the Video’s/Dvd’s have been returned?
A) Normally we check through the hire form but sometimes we don’t, as it is very time consuming.
Q) What happens when Videos/Dvd’s are overdue?
A) We normally charge extra.
Q) What happens if the Video/Dvd is not returned?
A) We send a reminder through the post and then issue recovery procedures.
Q) How many copies of each Video/Dvd do you normally keep?
A) Depends on the title.
Q) How many copies do you keep for new releases and old movies?
A) Well we don’t have an actual figure we keep between 1 and 15 copies.
Q) How do you know that the stock for a particular Video/Dvd has ran out?
A) We check on the shelves.
Q) How do you update your library when new movies are released?
A) Give these movies an id number and replace old movies.
Q) Do you rent out to any age customers or do you go by some rules?
A) We follow the rules of the BBFC.
Q) Do you register you customers? If yes please give details.
A) Yes we do. We take all personal details such as name and address and record them in alphabetical order in the record book.
Q) Do you always now your registered members?
A) Not always but we always do cross check.
After this interview I had a few unanswered questions, which I needed to get sorted if I could make a good system on the company. Therefore I asked Fakhir if it was possible to arrange a second interview and he obliged.
- When you said that you normally charge a fee when a rental is overdue what amount do you charge?
- We charge a pound extra.
- Can you please explain your recovery procedures to me?
- Yes, well we first send the reminder which if not understood we personally approach the person and ask for the Video/Dvd and the payment up front.
- Imagine that some Video’s/Dvd’s have been misplaced how do you account for them in stock control?
- We cant that’s a problem we always face.
- What does the BBFC stand for?
A) It stands for British Board of Film Classification.
Q) Do you charge for registration?
A) No it’s free.
A Summary of the Investigation
Through the two interviews that I have conducted I have a clear and precise overview of the current manual system at work. The points below explain this:
- To hire a Video/Dvd the customer must be a member or else they are asked to become a member that is free.
- Hiring involves taking details of the video and the member.
- Returns are dealt by crossing out the record for that hire.
- Over dues are charged fines and unreturned rentals are sometimes followed up with recovery procedures.
The current system works in a very simple manner and there are quite a lot of problems in this system. To contribute to this there are a lot of constraints. These problems are discussed below:
- Data is processed very slowly since whenever a customer wants to hire a Video/Dvd you have to record personal details in full, which increases the time needed to serve customers.
- Some of the times the data that is recorded may be incorrect as it takes time to find space on the hire form and is a bit repetitive entering data in.
- The hire forms themselves can be damaged or misplaced which makes more problems.
- The above problem may contribute in misleading customers of not having outstanding hires that haven’t been returned.
- The recovery procedures are not put fully into effect. This contributes to unnecessary.
- Customers are not made weary about which Video’s/Dvd’s are for sale and which aren’t.
- The space of work is very limited and to make full effect of a system it must be small and compact.
- There are more than 3000 movies in stock, which means entering all the data into a system will be repetitive and time consuming.
Appraisal of Feasibility of Potential Solutions
According to the problem we have been confronted with the solution may be made in many different ways. These options are discussed below:
Option 1: Improve the current manual, pen and paper system so that it works more effectively.
Option 2: Buy a package written specially for this application, which is a rent and membership system.
Option 3: Customize an existing general-purpose software package for the application. There are many examples one of which is Access 2000.
Option 4: Write a tailor made program using a computer language such as Pascal or Delphi.
I will be examining all these options through the following criteria. This criterion has been chosen by looking at all aspects affecting the would-be system.
- Cost – how much is the system going to cost including hardware/software needed and any further upgrades to technical features.
- Ease of Implementation – how much tailoring is to be carried out.
- Ease of Use – how easy is it for the end user in terms of help, documentation and interface design.
- Functionality – how many of the objectives will it fulfil and scope for expansion.
- Resource requirements – does additional hardware/software need purchasing.
I will be using weights of 1-5 to decide which option is best suited. 1 will be the worse extreme and 5 will be the best extreme. These results will be shown in the following table.
Data Flow Diagrams
See separate sheets.
Objectives
After gathering the relevant information about this manual system I can identify my objectives for the new computerised system confidently. These objectives are divided into general and specific objectives.
General Objectives
I want to produce a new computerised system that will:
- Successfully gain, validate and store all the data needed to produce relevant reports and forms.
- Reduce the time taken to record details on Videos/Dvd’s, members and the rent/return procedure.
- Record accurate data for the rent and return of videos.
- Produce accurate reports.
- Reduce the time to search and sort data.
- Only allow the input and processing of ‘rational’ data.
- Be easy to use and navigate through for even the most computer illiterate.
- Be secure from damage and unauthorized access.
Specific Objectives
- Successfully create and maintain the Video and Stock files.
- It should take less than 30 secs to record a loan and equally deal with a return.
- Deal with the renting process by:
- Effectively writing the appropriate details to the Customer file.
- Correctly updating the number of Videos/Dvd’s on loan to a customer in the Customer file.
- Writing the correct Membership No. to the correct Video/Dvd record in the Customer file.
- Deal with the return process by:
- Decreasing the number of videos on loan in the correct customer record in the Customer file.
- Removing customer references from the record in the Customer file.
- Produce reports for the following:
- Monthly income information generated by Video/Dvd rentals.
- Overdue Videos/Dvd’s.
- Full Video/Dvd lists.
- Selective lists based on different criteria.
- Membership numbers for new customers.
- These above loans should not take more than a few minutes to print in either a sorted or selective fashion.
- Checking that the Video/Dvd and customer exist.
- Checking that the Video/Dvd is not already on loan.
- Checking that the Video/Dvd and customer exist.
- Checking that a loan record exists.