Setting up a business - Tod's Tyres.

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Tom O'Neill        Page         07/05/07

Tom O’Neill L6LY

Tod’s Tyres

8172

Introduction

        Tod’s tyres is a company which deals in fitting new sets of tyres to fleets of cars. Tod has to record the details of each car, and send the owners a letter when the cars are due for new tyres. Previously, this could all be done manually, but the growth of the company has meant there is a need for a more efficient system.

The existing system is all manual, with Tod or one of his clerks keeping a book containing all the details of cars he maintains, as well as the addresses of his clients. He writes out a letter on a basic word processor on his home computer, and changes the address manually.

A new design is needed to make the company more efficient, as

Well as increase the capacity for adding new customers in the future. Ideally, the system should be very easy to use, as Tod himself is not very experienced with computers.

Because Tod hold’s the details of his customers on this computer, it must be protected from unauthorised use. A good way to do this would be to protect either the entire computer or the database with a password

Specification of solution

The Solution, for it to be a complete success, must be capable of each of the following:

  1.  It must store each record in a way that it is easily visible, easily compared with similar records, and easily retrievable with a query
  2. It has to be protectable with at least a password, to satisfy the requirements of the data protection act.
  3. The database itself must be easy and intuitive to use for its users, and must be a stable and reliable program.
  4. The data itself must be transferable to a common storage medium, like floppy disks or CDR’s, for cheap and compact back-up storage. However, these disks must be kept safe from unauthorised access, as per the data protection acts.  
  5. The programme must update the file in real-time; e.g. a change to the database at one workstation will register at the others with immediately after.

The solution, as a secondary objective, should be relatively cheap and easy to upgrade in the future. For instance, a few spare RAM sockets would be useful, as data flow increases and extra memory is needed.

The program developed to solve the problem should be widely compatible with most widely available platforms, so that the records can be viewed on other computers, in case the office computer is inaccessible, so that backups can be used. It is recommended the whole database be backup as often as possible, but every week or so would be sufficient, depending on the rate of data transfer in and out of the database.

The new system should also be easy to use and straightforward to operate. This will mean that Tod and the clerks can use the system quickly and easily, and so reduce operating time and shop stress. Therefore, I think a windows 98 system (stable, basic, and needs a modest spec to run) with Access XP or 2000, whichever is cheaper.

After a fitting of a tyre is completed, the quantity of the appropriate tyre available is reduced by the appropriate amount, and the ‘last tyre date’ of the car data table is updated manually. This way we can easily find how many tyres of each type are in stock, and how long each car has before it is due in again.

The solution program must be:

  1. Easy and intuitive to use
  2. Able to operate on a low spec – The firm will want to keep the spending on hardware to a minimum.
  3. Able to search for records, for quick access to data.
  4. Protected by a password + anti-virus software, under the data protection act.
  5. Easy to backup:
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  1. Must support floppy disk backups
  2. Must be a commonly used format (e.g. must be able to be read on most machines, etc.)

Feasibility study

Although the computerised process would save time in the long term, there is the short-term cost of buying and setting up the computer equipment. However, I think this would save the company time and money in the middle/ long term. To keep the firm efficient whilst it expands, computerising the administration system would free up staff time, making the workforce bigger than it needs to be. This computerised system means the ...

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