Recently a small Young Enterprise Essay

Recently a small â€Å"Young Enterprise† group has set up a Sweet Stand, which sells a variety of sweets and soft drinks. The staff working at this Sweet Stand are Dave Currall (The Manager), Natalia Gelder (Assistant Manager). At the moment, the records which hold the information, are all paper based. This problem requires for Dave Currall to keep records in order, and also wastes time in writing the information down for the records. A stock check takes a lot of time to do although Nature of the problem User’s requirements 1. Stock checking forms. 2. Stock not re-ordered. 3. Wrong Minimum re-order quantities. 4. Don’t know who supplies which item. 5. Takes time and is difficult to prepare orders. 1. Form to use for stock checking. 2. Automatically identify when stock is low. 3. Items have a re-order quantity. 4. Each item has its known supplier. 5. System creates printed orders. Details of the problem Details of the user’s requirements 1. Stock checking form – its paper based. This means that too much time is taken filling in the stock check form. Paper can be easily lost; also after a period of time it begins to look all messed up. Repeating the tasks again and again wastes time. 2. Stock is not re-ordered which leads to that the items are running out, and customers will go elsewhere. 3. Wrong Minimum re-order quantities – re-order levels are being guessed, therefore at times too much, stock is being re-ordered. As a result, there are problems with the storage space; items go passed their sell-by-date and have to be thrown away. 4. We don’t know whom supplies which item, it also takes time to find the items, and the items could go to a wrong supplier leading to a loss of money. 5. Takes time, and is difficult to prepare orders – we need to know which items are low on stock, what items are needed, and who the order is coming from (the supplier). 1. Stock checking form – computer generated list of items that can be used to record the number of each item in stock. 2. Automatic low stock warning – the system needs to identify when a current item is below a certain mark of stock and will need to be highlighted for re-ordering. 3. Item re-order quantity – each item has a number, which is used as a re-order quantity. 4. Each item has its own supplier – the system needs to know if the supplier for each item, this could be coded, used to order items from the correct supplier. 5. System creates printed orders – the items that need re-ordering, are put on an order form which is then reading to be ordered with its certain No. in Stock. There will be a different order form for each supplier. This order form will require all of the important information. Method of collecting data Information collected   Items sold   No. in Stock of stock * Supplier   What the supplier suppliers/ what item(s)   Sell-by-date. Re-order level of items Method Used Items sold – The staff count the items and write all the stock items onto a list. So when an item is sold, the staff will write down what has been sold.   No. in Stock of stock – The staff will count how much stock of each item they have, and write it down on paper.   Supplier – The staff would contact the supplier and retrieve the information they need to know on what the supplier supplies.   What the supplier supplies/ what item(s) – The staff would contact the supplier and find out what stock the supplier has via telephone, letter, etc. Sell-by-date – each box of items shall have the same sell-by-date so the staff can write down the sell-by-date for that box and keep up to date with the items.   Re-order level of items – levels of items need to be monitored manually to see what items run out of stock quickly, and some items which don’t sell very much. This way different levels are aquired for each item. Suggested Alternatives Alternative solutions shall improve the Sweet Stand; these should be improving the capture of the records by inserting them into a database so that they are kept safe. It should be able to identify when an item should need to be recorded. Also, it will control the No. in Stock of each item. Also it will be able to identify which item has come from which supplier. Also, these orders will be prepared when an item needs to be reordered. Inputs, Processing and Outputs required Inputs Processing Outputs   Stock items   No. in Stock of stock   Supplier details   Re-order level   Formulae Stock check form   Order form   Stock listing report Detail of inputs, processing and outputs Name of input Detail of input Stock items. The items of stock that need to be ordered need to be input into the system No. in Stock of stock The number of items in stock will need to be an input into the system Suppliers details The information on the supplier will need to be input. This information is the address, name, and contact numbers. Re-order level The re-order level will need to be input for each item of stock. This is so that the calculation can alert the user that the item needs to be re-ordered. Name of Processing Detail of processing Formulae IF(‘RE-ORDER'