The invest in a computer system

Is a small independent shop which sells a variety of electric products from electric heaters, digital camera to phones. The owner Mr Robertson currently runs it and is starting to find it increasingly hard to manage sales, due to increasing number of customers. Since business is running well he has decided to invest in a computer system to help run business more smoothly and give a better service to his customers.

Problems with current System.

Currently Mr Robertson handles every thing manually, from how much stock is available using a notebook and pen to producing receipts for customers by writing it out on paper.

When dealing with customers Mr Robertson has to rely on his memory a lot for managing stock quantities and previous sales made. Thus making the service he provides very slow, difficult and not very reliable since human error usually occurs.

Manager Interview

I prepared a few questions for the Mr Robertson the owner of the shop to get a better idea of what exactly, he wants and a bit of background about the prospective user(s).

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When writing out the questions I aimed to make them short, informative and less time consuming.

• Q1. How many people will be using the system?
• A. I (Mr Robertson) will be the only person using the system since I'm the only one that runs the shop.
• Q2. How would you describe the user(s) for the system as being computer user(s)?
• Well I have a computer at home which I use for word processing and surfing the internet but I'm not very good when it comes to using advanced stuff.
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• Q3. What do you expect from the new system? I hope the new system can really do most of the work I do so it makes my job easier.
• A. I would also like it to be able to manage the items I have in stock and let me know when I need new ones, it should keep track of sales and print receipts, I would also l protect and keep my sales information in a separate place every month. I would also like the system to order stock that is low automatically from the suppliers using something like the internet.
• Q4. How would you like the new system to behave and interact?
• A. I would like it to be easy to use as well as fast, I wouldn't like one with an extremely high learning curve, but one which is straight to the point, simply and effective.
• Q5. How much are you willing to spend on developing the new system?
• A. I was hoping that the computer that I already have in that shop will be enough and will be able to handle the system, else I wouldn't mind spending in the region of about 150 on upgrades to bring the system up to scratch.

Notes:- after examining the computer I have concluded it is pretty old but will be able to handle the new system easily.

Identification of prospective user(s)?

Mr Robertson being the owner of the shop and only worker will be the only person using the new system.

He claims to be fairly familiar with the basic operations of a Computer system, and has a computer in his shop, which he can use fairly comfortably. So he won't need much training as I will try to aim to make the new system fairly easy to use.

User Requirements and acceptable limitations Specifically Mr Robertson would like a system which will:  Posses the ability to store details about stock that is available.  Log every sale that is made. Have the capability to identify items using a code.  A method of alerting when certain type of stock is running low and needs reordering.

Allow items which have been sold to be returned and re-added to the stock if possible.  Produce a receipt after every sale.  At the end of every week the sales can be backed up on an external source.  System must be easy to use and have a clean interface.  Be hard if not impossible to make changes that will cause the system to not function or cause any type disruption.  Have a secure protection system so no one except Mr Robertson can access the system.  Be able to run on basic computer hardware.

Limitations.

I think I am pretty capable of performing most of the features that Mr Robertson would like for the new system, but I will have to leave out feature like automatically order stock from suppliers, as this will make the system to complex and is an extremely difficult task for a computer to handle when considering the security and hardware requirements. But nonetheless the system will produce a list so Mr Robertson can Manually order Items which need reordering easily.

Potential Solution

Technical feasibility Software.

There are a number of possible solutions that can be used to handle such a problem but since this will have to be solved using a basic computer system There are Two main software categories that can be used, Ready Made Software (Off-the-shelf) or Bespoke Software (individually tailored software). The easiest way to handle such a problem would be to use a flat database program (such as spreadsheet) this would work but it would make it difficult to perform some of the advanced features which are required. Second and the most practical way to handle a problem like this is using a relational database.

Since relational database software is specially designing to handle problems involving complex relationships, it would be idle. The solutions discussed so far use Ready Made Software. The advantages of using Ready Made software are :- Pretty secure and tested against bugs.  Can be Bought and installed straight away. Affordable Price.  Usually has strong technical support and software are well documented. The other way to handle the problem is using bespoke software, this will have to be written from scratch using a programming language which requires firm knowledge of a programming language.

The advantages of using Bespoke software are :- The software can be designed exactly to the users needs.  Can be written for specific hardware. Extra unneeded complex features won't be installed therefore making it simpler. Can provide a solution to problems that software packages can not. Hardware After viewing the Computer system Mr Robertson has I have decided to use it, instead of buying a new one since I feel that it is capable of running most if not all the possible software solutions, the system specifications are:

• Intel Pentium 133MHz
• 2000mb Hard disk
• 32MB Ram
• 4MB Graphics card.