I am going to write my project on my local hardware shop, which is called B & K; it is based down the street just from where I live.

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Introduction

Background information

I am going to write my project on my local hardware shop, which is called B & K; it is based down the street just from where I live. The shop provides a range of hardware goods such as household to gardening for the community in Nottingham. In terms of sales the shop is doing well apart from the current system, which is paper based. Some customers have big orders in this type of situation if there isn’t enough stock in the shop then we have to order the stock, which the customer wants and tell them to come on a certain day so that when the stock arrives at the shop the customer can come and obtain stock or B & K hardware staff can deliver stock if a customer wants their goods to be delivered to their door step. The products sold at the shop are of a good quality and value for money

The shop has been opened since 1990; it is very successful for its hardware goods service this is because of the quality of hardware products. The shop generally has customers from all around the areas of Nottingham.

The shop is open 7 days a week from 9:00am through to 6.00pm.

Most importantly the hardware shop provides:

  • Goods in shop
  • Stock deliveries to customers for large orders
  • Hires stock to such as wallpaper remover machine, etc to people, especially builders.

The need for a new system has arose because of competition from another hardware shop that has opened a few streets away from B & K. the new hardware shop called ‘Dale Hardware’ has a computerised system. Since this hardware shop has opened with a computerised system, it has been running successfully because customers do not have to wait long to obtain a receipt, items can be look up straight away to see if they are in stock or not, etc.

Description

When a customer comes to buy a product at B & Q Hardware, Mr. Singh has to give a receipt to the customer confirming that the customer has bought the product. This is done on an invoice, which Mr. Singh has a template of on his computer. He prints the template of the invoice and then fills in the customer’s details and product details (see template of customer invoice) manually. This can be very time consuming and if he makes a mistake, then he has to start all over again.

Mr. Singh employs about 4 employees to work in his hardware shop. The tasks of these four employees vary, e.g. filling shelves, sweeping and mopping, customer assistance, etc. Mr. Singh keeps a record of each employee daily recording the time they arrive, the hours that they do, their attitude and the time they leave. They are paid depending on the hours they work, which is usually 6 hours a day. At the end of the week, Mr. Singh calculates the number of hours done by each employee and then their month’s wages are sent into their bank accounts (see employee weekly record template).

Mr. Singh checks stock levels every Friday to check that if stock levels are okay. If there are products that are needed, then Mr. Singh writes done their names and description of the product and then goes to the cash and carry that same day to buy those products (see stock level template).


                                                  DFD Level 0            B& K Hardware      Existing System

        


                                                                        Task Diagram

                                                          The current system does a few tasks


Data Dynamics

Things change over a period of time. Some changes are due to policies and legislations. Details of customer product orders will be archived or deleted if not required for example stock details will be deleted that are more than 2 years old.

End Users Hardware & Software

Financial

The end user has already got a P.C at home and at the hardware shop, which have the same specification, so he will not need to buy a new computer. There will be no extra financial costs. However Mr Hartij Singh will have to backup the system, which is essential, and he is aware of backing up.

Mr. Singh has the following hardware and software available -

  • Pentium 4 Processor (Windows XP)
  • 512 MB 3.06 Ghz Ram Memory
  • 80 GB Hard Drive
  • 17” Monitor
  • Standard Keyboard & Mouse
  • DVD Drive
  • CDRW Drive
  • Epson R200 Printer
  • Ge Force 4 256 MB DDR Graphics Card
  • Microsoft Windows XP
  • Microsoft Office XP
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Problems Of Current System 

There are a lot of problems with the current system.

  • The whole system is paper based which can lead on to problems because it wouldn’t always be working efficiently.
  • Because of the current system being manual, it can be very time consuming for himself and the customer
  • If a mistake occurs, then Mr. Singh has to start all over again
  • The employee, customer, stock, stock order and supplier details are paper based however the system being paper based is that the type of problems which may occur are such as important papers ...

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