Project – Automated gadget store management system

CHAPTER ONE

1.0       Introduction

Hamza Electronics Shop Bali was established in 2012 as a business enterprise that deals in the sale of electrical, electronics, and hardware materials. Located at around the roundabout Baruwa road Bali, it has since progressed and registered as a private limited liability company incorporated. According to the Company profile, “the mission statement is to supply the company’s customers with quality products and services which meet their expectations; ensure safety, quality, and schedule in all projects for clients’ works; and to conduct businesses with integrity and responsibility”.

According to research carried out, the company just like most businesses operating on small scale basis, is facing challenges especially those related to controlling stock, identifying unpopular products and those that are essential or those that should not miss from the stock so that appropriate decisions are made while purchasing, etc. All these are inventory management related and basing on this, this study believed that the development of such a system would help the company solve half if not all of its problems related to inventory. The company currently has no automated inventory management system it is using. Rather products are registered with reference to the purchasing receipts that the Purchasing Officer delivers with the products. Sales are recorded on a daily basis in a specially designed black book with columns designed to capture relevant data such as product name, selling price, profits, total sales, and so on. Other information such as customers’ and vendors’ payments and contacts are also recorded in company receipts and box files respectively.

1.1    Background of the Study

1. Hamza Electronics shop is one of the large gadget Shops in Bali and has gained such a wealth of experience in the industry. It has main branch in Bali town with its Headquarter in Bali town. Its vast interest is in electronic gadgets Business Venture spans across a wide Market Area with Stores and Warehouses in Bali town.

The gadget Shop offers wholesale, retail and distribution services of their products to its customers.  For the matter of wholesale services, it is only carried out from the stores and warehouses while the retail services are offered at their chain of supermarkets where distribution services are offered in both places.  The existing system for the wholesale services was characterized by manual field registration and file-based system which was susceptible to an excessive number of mistakes, data redundancy and the difficulty of updating information about the goods in stock are but just a few of the challenges the company faces.

1.2    Statement of the Problem

For any one company that wishes to stay for long in business, one has to implement use management information systems that support business processes and transactions. Unfortunately, at Hamza Electronic Shop, the system being used is not automated. The company is faced with challenges including delays in serving customers as more time is spent on one customer in recording items that are being bought which records later consume alot of storage space; poor decision making especially on restocking products as there are no statistics to show the most/or least demanded products and also when duplicate or double entry of records occur; uncoordinated business processes that lead to duplication and data redundancy, alot of paper that needs storage space, miscalculations especially on sales and profits; and the inability to track available stock as there is no physical record of what is in and out of stock at specified times and also wrong projections as a result of using wrong records (General Manager’s interview responses, 2013).

1.3    Aim and Objectives of the Study

The main aim of this research was to develop an Automated gadgets shop Management System that will effectively manage the inventory of A. Hamza Electronics shop Bali in their Stores and warehouses, so as to achieve the following objectives:

1. To implement a prototype of the designed system that realizes the system designs and provides the real first testof the actual system.
2. To test and validate the designed system that ensures all systems requirements are met.

• To determine the requirements that would enable the design of an appropriate inventory management system

1.4    Significance of the Study

Due to the current problems in in existing system, the designed system can be more important to the company in saving a bit more money on expenses as it wouldn’t need to buy much paper and ink. The system also goes a long way in reducing fraud as it would neatly keep track of all the assets in the company. The customers are better served as information access with the new system would be far much faster.

The suppliers for the company also benefit as the new system makes it easier to know which items need to be restocked.

The research can also help academicians in their researches as reference when it comes to reviewing literature.

1.5    Scope and Limitation of the Study

The project was confined to a Hamza Electronics shop BaliTechnical Services that has three sections that is electronics, electrical and hardware. It also dealt with one other branch affiliated to the main branch. The processes that were emphasized while implementing the automated inventory management system included registering products, customers, and purchases, tracking sales and available stock, and registering staff. Departments which were involved or whose staff contributed in data collection were sales, marketing, human resources, and accounts departments.

1.6    Definition of Term

Gadget: A device or control that is very useful for a particular job.

Inventory: a detail list of all the items in stock.

Stock: the merchandise (Goods) that a shop has on hand it.

Automated: operated by automation or operated electronically by automation

Project – Automated gadget store management system