AN INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR GENERAL STORES

CASE STUDY: MURU ENTERPRISE LIMITTED

BY

AYEBAZIBWE SNOFLEX

BCS/7764/51/DU

AND

BIIRA LOICE

BCE/8530/51/DU

A project report submitted to the School of Computer Studies

in a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award

of Bachelors’ Degree of Computer Science of

Kampala International University.

JULY 2009

DECLARATION

We AYEBAZIBWE SNOFLEX and BIIR.A LOICE do hereby declare that this Project Report is

original and has not been published and or submitted for any other award to any other University

or Institution of higher learning before.

AYEBAZIBWE SNOFLEX

REG. NO. BCS/7764/51/DU

STUDENT signature. .

BIIRA LOICE

REG NO. BCE/8530/51/DU

S~DENT signature..~

Date: . .~11;~ / -L’L~1 1 3-~~

APPROVAL

This Project Report as been submitted for Examination with the approval of the supervisor

Signature: . . .

Mr. EMETU MICHAEL EMODU

SUPERVISOR

Date:

DEDICATION

We dedicate our project to the Almighty God who has been our guardian and given us wisdom to

accomplish all the necessary activities on this complex work. Not forgetting our parents

Mr. and Mrs. KIIZA ERYEZA, and Mr. and Mrs. MUHUMUZA NATHAN.

Brothers, Mr Eryeza B. Wilson, Bahati Sam, Bwambale Jonhson, Masereka Godfrey, and late

Kule Hannington.

Sisters, Ms Asiimwe M. Naume, Kabugho Jovet, and Mbambu Medius whose financial support

softened every thing. May the Almighty God reward them abundantly.

Brothers, Atwebembere Danson, Aineomugisha Godwin, Akanyijuka Anthonny. And the late

brother Alfred.

Sisters, Ms. Nahurira Edidah, Kanyesigye Winnie, Atuhaire Immaculate, Nagasha Esther,

Katusiime Rosette, Akankwatsa Charity.

I. ~tlv r

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With sincerity I Biira Loice truly appreciate the great work done by my Father Mr. Kiiza Eryeza

and Mother Mrs. Emenwerina Kiiza, Brothers Mr. Eryeza B. Wilson, Mr. Bahati Sam.

Sister Ms Asiimwe M. Naume for the financial support they offered towards the success of this

level of education.

Not forgetting Dr. OTANGA RUSOKE (Director of Admissions), Director of Academic Affairs

(KIU) who from time to time could endorse my Academic documents as well as the financial

support they could offer.

Family Friends especially Mr. Baguma John, Mr. Baluku Piira Alphose, Mr. Sabastiano Bakoko,

Mr. Agaba Ruroko, Mr. Muthaka James, Mr. Muhindi David, Mr. Baluku Alfred, Mr. Bwambale

Mbiling, Mr. Asiimwe Mbakania, Ayebazibwe Snoflex, Stella Magwara and all others.

Our lecturers who with their unconditional care helped us learn more competent Computer

Science skills for all the three years we have spent with them. Through intensive supervision and

career guidance, we have managed to successfully complete our project.

With sincerity I Ayebazibwe Snoflex appreciate the great work by my father Mr. MUHUMUZA

NATHAN and Mrs. JOSELYNE MUHUMUZA, Brothers and Sisters.

Not forgetting Mr. and Mrs. Yoramu Kakooza who helped me process my documents of coming

to KIU, Mr. Nuwagaba Moses who has managed to accommodate me for one year by the time

I reached here in KIU.

Uncles Mr. Bagambana Godfrey, Mr. Mirembe Francis, Kakooza Yoramu and Katto Hamu.

Family friends Mr. Kibiira Julius, Mr. and Mrs. Turysingura Everlest, Mr. Benson, Biira Loice,

Namuli Juliet, Nankaja Juliet, Ruhinda Ronald, Nkwatsibwe James, Twaaha and all others.

With special gratitude we wish to extend our thanks to our supervisor Mr. Emetu Michael

Emodu who tirelessly advised us in all possible ways throughout our project implementation. We

also thank the rest of the people who have seen us through this trying period both academically

and in daily life like the managing director Mr. Ruzindana Karibu of Muru Enterprises Limited,

our parents and so many others.

We only ask the Almighty God to bless them richly in all their endeavors since we have no better

words to express our sincere appreciation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION H

APPROVAL iii

DEDICATION iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURES xi

LIST OF APPENDICES xii

LIST OF ABBREVATIONS xi

ABSTRACT xiv

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT 2

1.3 MAIN OBJECTIVE 3

1.4 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES 3

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 3

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3

CHARPTER TWO 5

LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1. INTRODUCTION 5

2.2 INFORMATION STORAGE 5

2.3 SECURITY 5

2.3.1. DATP] INFORMATION SECURITY 5

vi

2.3.2 USER CoMPoNENT OF SEcuRITY .6

2.3.3 INTERFACE SEcuRrrY 6

2.4 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT 7

2.4.1 SUPPLY CFIAIN AND INVENTORY MANAGEMENT 7

2.4.2 ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING 7

2.4.3 ORIGIN OF THE TERM 8

2.4.4 SUPPLIER-BUSINESs UNIT Co-0RDIIsTATI0N 8

2.5 CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT 9

2.5.1 CuSTOMER RELATIONsHIP MANAGEMENT 9

2.5.2 CUSTOMER KNOWLEDGE CAPTURE 9

2.5.3 CUSTOMER LOYALTY/RETENTION 10

2.6 DATABASE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT 10

2.7 INFORMATION RETRIEVAL 11

2.8 STORE MANAGEMENT 11

2.9 CONCLUSION 12

CHAPTER THREE 13

METHODOLOGY 13

3.1 SECONDARY DATA AND INFORMATION FOR READING 13

3.2 INTERVIEWS 13

3.3 QUESTIONNAIRES 13

3.4 OBSERVATION 14

3.5 SYSTEM DESIGN 14

3.6 SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION 14

CHAPTER FOUR 16

CURRENT SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND NEW SYSTEM DESIGN 16

4.1 INTRODUCTION 16

4.2 DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT SYSTEM 16

__ I—1 vii ~I

4.2i PRODUCT PURcFIA5TNG. 16

4.2.2 PRODuCT BUYING 17

4.2.3 DATA ENTRY 17

4.3 RECOMMENDATIONS 18

4.4 DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM 18

4.4.1 NOTIFIcATION PRocEss 19

4.4.2 FOLLOwING-UP THE CUSTOMERS 20

4.4.3 DATA MANAGEMENT 21

4.5 REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS 21

4.5.1 REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM 21

4.5.1.1 User Requirements 21

4.5.1.2 Functional Requirements 22

4.5.1.3 Non Functional Requirements 22

4.5.1.4 Specific Requirements 23

4.6 SYSTEM DESIGN 24

4.6.1 DATA FLOW DIAGRAMS 24

1. Symbols usedfor the Data Flow Diagrams 24

2. A Data Flow Diagramfor the Proposed System 25

3. A Dataflow Diagramfor Tracking Customers and the Supply Not~fIcation Operational Processes 26

4.6.2 ENHANCED ENTITY RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM 28

1. Symbols Used 28

4.6.3 ExTRACT FROM DATA DICTIONARY FOR THE GENERAL STORE DESCRIPTION OF ENTITIES 29

4.6.4 ExTRACT FROM DATA DICTIONARY FOR GENERAL STORE SHOwUsIG DESCRIPTION OF RELATIONSHIPS 31

4.6.5 ExTRAcT FROM DATA DICTIONARY FOR THE GENERAL STORE SHOwII’IG DESCRIPTION OF ATTRIBUTES 32

CHAPTER FIVE 35

SYSTEM DESIGN 35

5.1 INTRODUCTION 35

S.2USER INTERFACE DESIGN 35

5.3DATABASE DESIGN 39

5.4INTERACTIONS BETWEEN USER INTERFACE AND DATABASE 39

5.5 GENERATION OF REPORTS 39

C~Vll1~C

5.6 SYSTEM ACHIEVEMENTS .42

5.7SYSTEM TESTING 42

5.8SYSTEM VALIDATION 42

CHAPTER SIX 43

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 43

6.1 INTRODUCTION 43

6.2 PROJECT TASKS UNDERTAKEN 43

6.2.1 AN INSIGHT INTO THE GENE~L STORE INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.. 43

6.2.2 LESSONS LEARNT 44

6.2.3 OBSTACLES TO THE PROJECT 44

6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS 45

6.4 CONCLUSION 45

REFERENCES 46

APPENDICES 49

fix i~

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Notification procedures 19

Table 4.2 Following up customers 20

Table 4.3 Processes and Descriptions 27

Table 4.4 Entity descriptions 29

Table 4.5 Relationship descriptions 31

Table 4.6 Attribute descriptions 32

Fjx J~

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 Data Flow Diagram for proposed system 25

Figure 4.2 Data Flow Diagram for customer tracking and supplier notification

processes 26

Figure 4.3 Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagram for proposed system 28

Figure 5.1 Login form for the general store system authorized users 36

Figure 5.2 Ordered Items Interface 37

Figure 5.3 Manager’s form for adding new item 38

Figure 5.4 Login error message 40

Figure 5.5 Customer Details Report 41

1—

LIST OF APPENDICES

Questionnaire Guide 49

Php Code to Send Notification to Supplier 54

Php Code to Capture Customer Details and Change Available Stock 55

Php Code to Select the Different Categories of Products 57

( ..~I xii I—

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CSS Cascading Style Sheets

HTML Hypertext Markup Language

PHP Hypertext Preprocessor

SQL Structured Query Language

I xiii I~4

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to develop and implement an Information Management System for

General Stores. We zeroed to one general store, Muru Enterprises Limited, since we had limited

time yet all general stores have slightly the same activities. Interviews, questionnaires and closer

observations were used to gather information about the existing system at Muru Enterprises

Limited, which gave us a clear overview of the system requirements for the proposed system.

Data flow Diagrams and Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagrams were used in the design of the

system. We implemented our system by first developing a database where all the company

information is to be stored. The database is interlinked to a webpage as the user interface for easy

data entry and retrieval. After analyzing the system data in the inventory, reports are drawn to the

manager. To deal with delivery requests to the suppliers and customer tracking, messages are

sent through an electronic mailing utility. Snapshots of both the interfaces and reports are

presented in chapter 5 of the report. This project can be later upgraded to pursue the utility of an

electronic cart or valley down to electronic commerce and electronic banking.

€I xiv [

Chapter one

1.0 Introduction

Li Background to the Study

Many businesses have progressively expanded in both structure and scope, which requires

efficient management of the company’s information in coordination with both its internal

and external environment. To every manager, it is important to consider that business

processes begin from a customer’s need and ends with a customer’s need fulfillment.

Concern should also be put on the suppliers because incase of any delays, and poor quality

supplies, the company is accountable because its processes will tend to shrink. The

company can decompose its main business process into several sub-processes, which have

their own attributes, but also contribute to achieving the goal of the super-process. Though

decomposed into several sub-processes, these activities can be integrated in a general

system management for efficient business monitoring and decision-making. A company can

still use a single but integrated system to serve its customers better and faster, manage

supplier relationships more effectively. A company having a standard wholesale

management system that has robust inventory management capabilities provides flexible

options for item costing, pricing, and tracking so that the company maintains tight control

over its costs and quantities. As an output, item allocation and real-time inventory

adjustments provides a complete, up-to-date view of a company’s supply and demand

situation. catastrophic to a company. Tremendous data losses could result if an employee

with access to the sensitive data distributed the confidential information of the business or

its customers. Depending on the severity of the security breach, the company’s reputation

could be adversely affected, thus resulting in a decline in sales, consumer, and investor

confidence.

The current system at Muru Enterprises Limited was designed using both Microsoft Access

and Visual Basic application programs, which are considered less secure for the company’s

information in terms of authenticity. Data security involves considering issues of integrity,

availability and confidentiality (Badamas, 2001).

The system in place at Muru Enterprises Limited is not integrated for easy linkup with the

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suppliers to notify them on when to deliver, and in what quantities. The system lacks the

mechanism of ensuring that management is abreast with the inventory at hand. The

proposed system ensures efficient coordination between the suppliers and the company.

Since it is from the inventory management that decisions are made, we designed an

integrated system that analyzes data from the Sales and Stock departments. It is from this

data that the proposed system triggers alerts to the inventory supervisors as well as quick

updates to their suppliers hence dealing away with inventory shortages and over stocking.

Muru Enterprise business system has no ability to tell how much is in store and the

changes in its customer’s tastes and preferences. Business owners, managers and

employees need to keep a good relationship with their customers for the success of their

businesses. This can be achieved by recording and updating the information provided by

their customers at different intervals. This can help the organization to know the changes in

the customers’ tastes and preferences, target markets and attract new customers (Ranjana

and Brian, 2005). An improvement in this system enables the users to know what stock is

enough and notifying them in case of any changes in the customers’ demands.

1.2 Problem Statement

The current system at Muru Enterprises Limited has no ability to track or follow up the

company’s customers in relation to what kind of commodities they need and in what

quantities. It is hard to follow up the customers and their preferences. In addition, the

customer data in the store is not secure because there is um~estricted data access. It is also

hard to track the amount of commodities present in the store, which leads to commodity

absence when customers need them and on the other hand, there may be excessive

stocking of the items in the store. The reporting format of the current system presents

redundant customer data to the managers and other system users. It is noted that the report

generation is not fast because the applications used like Microsoft Access and Visual

Basic are not specialized software for general store information management. Therefore,

there was a need for the general store information storage and retrieval management

system to address the current limitations as mentioned above.

2

1.3 Main Objective

The main goal of this research was to design and implement an Information Management

System for General Stores.

1.4 Specific Objectives

The specific objectives of this project were to;

1. Investigate into the existing literature in order to get what is required in designing a

general store system.

2. Design the general store management system basing on the requirements collected

from the research.

3. Test and validate the proposed system.

4. Implement the designed general store management system.

1.5 Scope of the Study

There are many distribution channels in Kampala both retailers and general stores. Our

major study was Mum Enterprises Limited, which is located along Martin road. Since all

general stores generally operate the same way, •focusing on workers, suppliers and

customers of this company was a representative of similar general stores. A close

observation of Muru general store management system was emphasized. Theoretically,

the implemented system put emphasis on transactional data, customer tracking and

suppliers’ notification processes.

1.6 Significance of the Study

In today’s competitive world, information systems provide competitive advantage

to a business due to an increase in the amount of information processed and

precautions should be taken on how this information should be stored. There has

been a rapid increase in the amount of data created, stored and retrieved by most

organizations (Kjetil, 2002; Beynon-Davies, 2003). Since it is every manager’s

dream to get new customers as well as maintaining the existing customers, the

implemented system enables easy tracking of the company customers as well as

their tastes and preferences.

3

The designed system helps to overcome the problem of unauthorized data access by

ensuring security and data integrity with the clients data. This was achieved by

creating authenticated usernames and passwords giving access to only those

authorized parties to avoid unauthorized data alteration in the system.

Co-ordination with the company’s suppliers helps the company to improve on its

forecasts and planning for its inventory. With coordinated supply management,

there is always a reduction in inventory costs since company supply orders are made

basing on the demand levels and what is in stock (Xiande, Jinxing and Zhang,

2002). The proposed system is able to issue alert messages through electronic

mailing services to the company suppliers, updating them on the supply dates and

what! how much to deliver.

o The implementation of this project ensures efficiency and effectiveness in updating

its users on how much is stocked, what is needed and what is overstocked in terms

of items. This eliminates the problems of overstocking and under stocking in the

general store.

• The implementation of this system enables the generation of simple, clear and

concise reports with all the information relevant to the managers’ planning and

decision processes. This eases access of information on customers, suppliers and the

company avoiding delays on the company services.

o This study technically provided an output of a general store management system.

This business system carries-out the processing of the company’s transactions,

notifying the users and suppliers on when and what to deliver, as well as tracking

customers for efficient inventory control and monitoring.

• Intensive research on this study and developing the business system at hand helped

us understand how business systems operate and what it takes to develop one, hence

developing our careers.

Academically, the study helped us to gain practical skills giving us a clear over view

of how to implement what we studied in class. The success of this project also

contributes to the fulfillment of the requirement of a Bachelor’s Degree in computer

science.

• Several resea:rch works were done in this area, but most of it focuses on

supermarkets. Our emphasis being on general store management for whole sellers,

its findings will act as a basis for further research.

4

Chapter Two

Literature Review

2.1. Introduction

This section gives the different ideas which were generated by different scholars about this

topic. These ideas gave us a foundation basing on the analysis they make on the topic of

designing a general store business system.

2.2 Information Storage

The information gathered in an organizational setting mainly seeks to support the

organizations’ managerial commitments and the lowest levels where this information is to be

used also need consideration. Marketers need this information to aid in their one to one

dealings with the organizational clients; however, this can only be possible if the marketing

personnel have up-to-date and raw information about these particular clients. Marketers

should always be mindful of the range of the storage medium used to store the information

gathered (Head, 2001). It is wise to rely on midrange storages that are capable of ensuring

quality data through unprecedented levels of availability, performance, functionality,

management, connectivity, investment protection, and strength hence gaining value from all

the information gathered.

2.3 Security

2.3.1. Data! Information Security

Serious considerations must be given to the security aspect of the company’s business data

via mobile and local network systems. Data security involves considering issues of integrity,

availability and confidentiality (Badamas, 2001). Costs too are supposed to be considered

and before venturing in the control measures, there should be a clear understanding of the

risks and threats to the application system at hand. Data in the business is so confidential and

must be secure. It is true that, every type of computer application has its threats and risks.

This also applies to business systems, which called for a clear investigation on the operation

of the system at Mum Enterprises Limited to solve the specific risk situations as well as

designing the new improvements to the system under a secure mode.

Information security is vital to the survival of today’s enterprises and therefore should be

5

given the emphasis it deserves at all enterprise levels. Lost, stolen, destroyed, compromised,

or exploited, computer information can destroy a company (Rossouw, 2002). So to introduce,

manage and maintain a high level of information security in an organization calls for a proper

management methodology. Keeping the company’s essential data secure is a fundamental

enabler to helping the business survive in today’s competitive market place.

2.3,2 User Component of Security

Information security involves both technology, which makes up the system security and

people who work on it. The use of information systems in business has been very

advantageous to the organizations that use them through data processing, storage and

retrieval. However, the increasing levels of information insecurity are affecting this. The

main cause of security failure is the human factor due to the fact that however good the

system may be designed, they have to be involved. Although many security measures are put

in place, they can still fail because of the human factor (WSEAS — Presented at the 2002

WSEAS Tnt. Conf. on Information Security, Rio de Janeiro, 2002).

Information security aspect is increasing and some of the ways to address it is by

understanding the organizational goals and culture, risk communication among the

employees and trust for each other at the work place. With the understanding of the

organizational goals, this can build a good culture leading to trust and risk communication

among the employees of the organization (loannis and Ray, 2004).

2.3.3 Interface Security

Information is the most important backbone of any organisation in business today. All

organisations should endeavour to seek and put in practice the sophisticated security

measures on their information. Many security breaches like system failure, theft,

inappropriate usage, unauthorised access or computer virus are exposed to the organisation

information which poses a risk to its competitiveness and cash flow; it could also damage its

reputation (Rudall and Mann, 2006). Parties like former employees, competitors and crackers

might be interested in the organisation’ s sensitive data for either passive or active intentions.

It is always very crucial to come up with standard control measures in order to secure the

organisation data. And for this project we used the most secure standard programming tools

like PHP and MySQL during the implementation with an aim of improving the system

security.

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2.4 Supply Chain Management

2.4.1 Supply Chain and Inventory Management

Supply chain management calls for the information flows among suppliers, manufacturers,

distributors, retailers and customers. This helps the company to improve on its forecasts and

planning for its inventory through coordinating their replenishment and production decisions

under demand uncertainty. This supports the idea of notifying the suppliers in case of a need

to restock, which reduces on the inventory costs (Katerina and Panagiotis, 2008). This was

attained by tracking what is in stock in relation to customer orders and the supply chain to

improve operational management through information sharing.

Through the application of a robust but simple monitoring and control technique, there is

always effective business management. This technique helps the business managers to

monitor, control and make decisions which are beneficial to the business marketing and

inventory processes (Paul, .John and Geoff. 2001). This forwarded the major idea to help

small and medium-sized enterprises to survive through the use of systems that monitor and

control the business management processes. In support of this idea, we saw that the wholesale

monitoring and control system helped Muru Enterprises Limited control and manage its

inventory processes. Inventory management is a critical issue for distributors and through

this, a general description of what is in stock and when to restock is monitored and

controlled. It also helps in shelf availability, which builds shopper loyalty to the store.

2.4.2 Enterprise resource planning(ERP)- is a company- wide computer

software system used to manage and coordinates all the resources, information and

functions of a business from shared data stores.

An ERP system has a service- oriented architecture with modulator hard ware and

soft ware units or “service” that communicate on a local area network. The modular

design allows a business to add or reconfigure modules (perhaps from different

vendors) while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be

centralized or distributed.

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2.4.3 Origin of the term

Around 1930. over frequent changes in sales forecasts, entailing continual read

adjustments in production, as well as the unsuitability of the parameters fixed buy

the system, led MRP (material requirement planning) to evolve into a new concept

manufacturing resource planning or MRP2.

Source: “CIM: principles of computer integrated manufacturing”, Jean-Baptiste

waldner, john wiley and sons, 1992, reproduced with authors authorization.

The initial ERP originated as an extension of MRP (material requirements planning;

later manufacturing resource planning) and CIM (computer integrated

manufacturing). It was introduced big research and analysis firm Gartner in 1990.

ERP systems now attempt to cover all core functions of an enterprise, regardless of

the origination’s business or charter. These systems can now be found in non-

manufacturing businesses, non-profit organizations and governments. To be

considered an ERP system, a software package must provide the function of at least

two systems. E.g. a software package that provides both payroll and accounting

functions could technically be considered an ERP software package. Of modules in

an ERP which formally would have been stand-alone applications include; product

lifecycle management supply chain management e.g. (purchasing, manufacturing and

distribution), warehouse management, customer relationship management (CRM),

sales order processing, online sales, financials, human resources and decision

support system.

2.4.4 Supplier-Business Unit Co-ordination

Coming up with several business processes in the company always promises effective

operations. This is because each business process is viewed as a single business unit and that

means that maximum and dedicated control and monitoring is always emphasized. This is

achieved through the use of customized business systems for each unit (Elizabeth, David and

Mike, 2004). However, in the implemented project, the information systems were not divided

according to the inter-organizational units but the business System designed caters for each

business unit accordingly and provides it with the necessary information though not online.

This ensures an excellent management of the supply chain since both parties the company

and its suppliers are provided with the most relevant information needed through mini

reports.

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2.5 Customer J~’Ianagement

2.5.1 Customer Relationship Management

The business world is growing at a very high rate and that means that new ideas Ofl how to

handle, obtain and retain the companys customers are very important. “Customer is the king”

this saying can be put in practice only if the effective customer management policies are

invented .A customer can only go where he/she is celebrated but not tolerated by getting what

they need. The system designed puts the company’s customers in the first position of its

requirements’ considerations. Some of these considerations include service requests,

complaints, product returns, and information requests (Regina, Robert and David, 2003). The

system was able to capture the customer interests, needs, and buying habits as they

progressed through their life cycles, and tailored the marketing effort accordingly. This way,

customers were in a better position to get exactly what they wanted as they changed and at

the same time it helped the company to retain them.

Business owners, managers and employees need to keep a good relationship with their

customers for the success of their businesses. This can be achieved by recording and updating

the information provided by their customers at different intervals, that is to say, what the

customers want, when they want it, how and where. This can help the organization to know

the change in the customers’ tastes and preferences, target markets and attract new customers

(Ranjana and Brian, 2005). Through the Customer Relationship Management System, the

organization alerted its customers about the available items in the store, got customer ideas

about the goods and services of the organization. Thus, this system became very important

for the success of the business because it improved the entire customer communication

process.

2.5.2 Customer Knowledge Capture

There is a pressing need to capture customer behavior in a medium that can support

concurrent change in tastes and preferences due to the dynamic environment in which current

businesses operate.”.. . practices in marketing and customer relationship management have not

been able to capture knowledge from customers that comes from social interactions with firm

employees.”(GarcIa-Murillo and Annabi, 2002). Such media needed to support the personnel

who were involved in the exercise of capturing the data; however, it needs to be secure and

accessed by the various users in the organizational hierarchy.

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2.5.3 Customer Loyalty! Retention

Customer loyalty focuses on what the customer desires from a company and the company’s

position in the customer’s mind; therefore it is very important for every company in business

to make strategic decisions of creating this element within its customers. “. . . .companies are

embracing the use of modern technologies to enhance the services they offer and to gain

customer loyalty. The objectives are to stay in the forefront of today’s marketplace and to

improve service, efficiency, and profitability.” (Shan-Chun, Sunita and Kandampully, 2003).

Provision of exclusively effective quality services, differentiated commodities, after sales

services are some of the ways that the company uses to win its customers’ loyalty and create

a good reputation among them since it costs less to retain than to acquire new customers.

2.6 Database System Management

In today’s competitive world, information systems provide competitive advantage to a

business due to an increase in the amount of information processed and precautions should be

taken on how this information should be stored. There has been a rapid increase in the

amount of data created, stored and retrieved by most organizations (Kjetil, 2002; Beynon

Davies, 2003). Many of these organizations create this information when they record their

day-to-day activities either as business transactions with their customers or during the

management process. Therefore, this called for the use of Databases that simplified data

storage, increased data integrity and increased security through authorization. However,

databases are expensive in terms of creation and maintenance especially those that are meant

to store and retrieve large amounts of data.

Databases are so important since they foster relationship among information items through

the analysis of the spatial and temporal organization and collaborative use of information

(Keel, 2007). This information was shared through the different organization networks with

an aim of enabling individual users to navigate vast amounts of shared information

effectively and help remotely dispersed team members combine their contributions, work

independently without diverting from common objectives, and minimize the unnecessary

amount of verbal communication.

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2.7 Information Retrieval

During this information era, new technology has been setup for easy access and processing of

the information. To control and monitor the business information, Business system

management is vivid. It is this most appropriate information that enables managers to make

strategic decisions through the use of simplified information retrieval tools.Today’s

businesses are characterized by manual retrieval systems that expose them to so many threats

during data retrieval and this include data inconsistencies and so many others which fall in

the same line (Hersh, Zobel and Mothe, 2002). It was believed that such problems were

caused by the users’ neglect at the designing stage by the system analysts. We ensured that

the user was at the heart of each project design. The systems available today do not consider

the fact that most users are unable to make optimal use of the available system functionalities

when retrieving this information and have trouble with accessing the information and don’t

perceive all functionalities as essential. Our intention was to come up with a user-centered

design that focuses on preventing user problems and equip them with solutions that support

users at work with their information in an electronic environment, communication and other

activities.

2,8 Store Management

On-shelf availability is a critical issue for both manufacturers and general store managers

today. Having a fully stocked store improves consumer value, builds consumer loyalty to the

products and shopper loyalty to the store, increases sales and most importantly boosts

category profitability (Katerina and Panagiotis, 2008). The percentage of out-of-stocks was a

direct result of general store replenishment practices and shelf-restocking practices (product

is at the store but not on the shelf). The process of collaborative store ordering was important

in a general store because it described the situation where the store-managers and suppliers

collaborated in the ordering process, shared the same product and stored information. Once

this is implemented, the company will gain a competitive advantage over its rivals.

11

2.9 Conclusion

For any business to competitively excel it should take an insight into the strategic policies

and procedures of managing, controlling, processing, manipulating and organizing its

information. Once these procedures and policies are maintained, they obviously ensure

proper information management, improved security, and networked information usage

hence advancing the task of decision-making.

12

Chapter Three

Methodology

3.0 Data collection methods

3.1 Secondary Data and Information for Reading

Efforts were made to investigate the existing literature concerning business systems drilling

down to those designed for general stores. More documents like Muru Enterprises Limited

System users’ manual were reviewed to internalize the system specifications. This was done

in order to understand how the current system operates and how well we could use the

information gathered to restructure it.

3,2 Interviews

Structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted with both the users of the system,

company customers and the managers. We considered the use of structured interviews since

they are administered by a researcher; they increase response rates and the quality of answers

for questionnaire style research. Semi-structured interviews were put into account because

they allow the researcher to produce an interview schedule, which lists all the questions the

researcher wants to find out from the interviewee and provides an element of comparing and

contrasting the gathered information with information from other interviews. This was

basically looking for the challenges faced while using the system and the strengths it

registers. The information gathered was used to address the problems faced while using the

current system by making fundamental changes in the new proposed system.

3.3 Questionnaires

We provided closed- ended and open-ended questions to the users of this system through

questionnaires with an aim of getting an insight into what the current system does and the

expected changes. We realized that with the use of questionnaires, responses were gathered in

a more standardized way which was relatively quick to collect information relevant to our

project.

13

3,4 Observation

Observations were carried out to critically identify the weaknesses and strengths of~ the

system and to clearly verify that there were no deviations and biases encountered in the

information provided by the users of this system. We took a step ahead to interact with the

current system at Muru Enterprises Limited purposely to equip our understanding with how it

operates in relation to the information we gathered from the questionnaires and interviews

carried out. This built on our requirements collection for the design phase of the proposed

system.

3~5 System Design

Interpretation and evaluation of the information gathered was undertaken to properly evaluate

whether the information gathered suit the system design requirements. This was done to

determine the processes and procedures which we employed in the design stage of our

project. The tools we used during this stage included relational tables, Data Flow Diagrams

and Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagrams.

16 System Implementation

The system design was implemented using MySQL, PHP, HTML, CSS, Java script and other

programming languages. Below are some of the reasons why we considered the use of these

tools.

MySQL

It is a relational database management system which allows the storage of data in separate

tables rather than putting it all in one big storeroom. This improves on the speed and

flexibility of the system. MySQL has the ability for easily recovering data in case of system

break down.

Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)

PHP supports scripting on several platforms like WindowsNT, Linux and UNIX. PHP is a

fast processing tool and has stability which helped us to design a robust system. PHP also

provides many levels of security which can be set in any specified files to the desired level.

14

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Delivering host sessions using HTML provides the user with a consistent interface and it

provided us with a highly effective interface for presenting our information.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

With the use of a single CSS file that contains features like positioning, layout, font, colors

and style information for an entire web site, the layout and position of navigation can be

completely consistent across a site. The file can be referenced by each HTML file on the site.

This helped us in separating the content of all our HTML documents from the style and

layout of other documents.

15

Chapter Four

Current System Analysis and New System Design

4.1 Introduction

Descriptions of both the current and proposed system are given in this chapter together with

the tools used to design the proposed system.

4.2 Description of Current System

Muru enterprises Limited is a medium sized company located along Martin Road which deals

in supplying general merchandise that include households, plastics, detergents, cooking oil,

sugar and so many others. It offers services to a small community in Kampala and supplies

most of its products to people in areas of Mukono district.

4.2.1 Product Purchasing

Muru enterprise sends its suppliers its stock balance on specific days of the week that is on

Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Muru’s suppliers include Mukwano Industries Limited,

Kakira Sugar Works, Sugar Corporation of Uganda limited among others. On receiving the

stock balance the supplier offers an order form to the buyer (Muru), once it is filled the

information it contains is captured and entered into the system which is interpreted in terms

of products and the system outputs a sales form that includes items needed together with their

prices.

When everything in the supplier’s system is balanced, the products are loaded on the vehicles

and delivered to the general store. Muru as a company has vehicles in its possession which

help in transporting the products purchased from the suppliers to the general store. On

receiving the products at the store, they are put in charge of the store keepers who are

responsible for off loading them and stocking them into the store. The quantity, categories

and names of products received are entered into the system and now ready for sale.

16

4.2.2 Product Buying

Cashiers receive the customers physically and use a manual sales book to capture their details

like the name, address, telephone number and their preferred orders. In case a customer is

buying the products on cash; the quantity, name and the total price of the products bought,

customer name and the cashier issuing the receipt are written on the receipt.

Once the total amount of money for the products is cleared, the cashier signs the receipts and

duplicates it into four copies. One of the copies is given to the customer, the second copy

remains with the cashier, the third copy is given to the store keeper so that he/she can be able

to identify the products bought by the customer and the last one is taken to the accountant

who enters the information in the computer system. The persons in charge of loading the

products picks the products bought according to the receipt and load them on the vehicle

making them ready for transportation to any specified destination.

The company also sells its products on credit but only to its loyal customers with which they

have all their details. The customer’s order is captured by the cashier on the order form and

duplicated into four copies just like the receipts and distributed. After all the order forms are

given to the concerned parties, the products are given to the customer and taken.

4.2.3 Data Entry

The accountant captures all the information which includes the customer details from the

sales book and initially enters it into the system. If the customer buys products on cash, their

order purchase information will be entered into the system. The information of interest at this

level is the total amount of money paid for the products bought, product name, the product

quantity, customer name and the cashier who signed the receipt.

Credit sold products involves the issuing of an order form, so while entering the information

in the system; the accountant is strictly interested in the quantity of products ordered for, the

product names, the name and location of the customer buying, and the cashier name who

signed the form. The total amount of the products to be paid is not written or not entered

because the unit price of the products was initially set in the system. So the system just

multiplies the quantity ordered for with the unit price and issues the total amount of money to

be paid.

17

4.3 Recommendations

A visit to Muru Enterprises Limited and an interaction with its system gave us a clear image

of its operations and we were able to identify some problems which can be solved once some

of the following remedies are put into action.

Muru is a company which deals in general merchandise meaning that it distributes a variety

of products to its customers. This is a reason enough to call for the need of a website so that it

can simplify the process of ordering to its customers and to advertise the new products on

market with an aim of attracting more potential customers.

The system security at Muru is under looked at the extent that getting access to the system

does not necessitate one to have any login permissions, just a mere click on the system gives

one access to each and every part of it. Enforcement of security measures and putting them in

place should be emphasized for entrusted information security.

The database used at Muru enterprise does not operate basing on standard integrity

enhancement measures like primary keys, referential integrities when identifying the abase

objects such as the customer and product tables. Such measures should be applied in order to

avoid redundancies and inconsistencies.

In the due course of navigating through the system at Muru, the accountant exposed us to

some of the dormant/inactive sections of the system that were designed but good for nothing

as far as the company operations are concerned. Such practices lead to system inefficiencies

and consume a lot of disk space. System design requirements should always be analyzed

based on the company information needs.

4.4 Description of the Proposed System

The proposed system is intended to utilize stored data for a general store business to manage

or reduce its inventory efficiently as well as enabling the management to make strategic and

operational decisions. Emphasis has been put on the notification process to the managers or

staff as well as the suppliers. This includes the system monitoring what is in stock and what

has been sold in relation to the customer demand rates, then inquires from the managers or

staff if it is proper to restock or halt stocking.

18

On agreeing to the restock notice, the system sends a delivery request to the supplier. It is

also intended to not only store the customer details but also make use of it by monitoring or

tracking them basing on their purchase behaviors and preferences. This will help in

maintaining the company customers, attracting several others as well as answering their

queries hence increasing the customer satisfaction levels. The process of following-up

customers is going to be managed through the mailing list. The proposed system will consist

of the following;

4.4.1 Notification Process

A wholesale company’s idea is not all about stocking the products but to purchase and

immediately sell out the stock, hence always finding measures on how to reduce inventory

through an efficient inventory management process. Through handling the notification

process basing on the inventory data, the system can help in reducing on over stocking.

The system scans through the inventory data and tallies what was stocked and what was

bought out to consolidate what is remaining in stock for all categories in the store. After the

scan, the system queries a summary of all the category data and sends a report to the manager

in form of a request for more stock to meet the customer demands. Several of the processes

will be undergone in response to the notification request as seen in the table below.

Event Response to the Actions Taken

Conditional event

Accountant agrees Yes system sends a delivery request to the

to notification supplier

request

No Notification is halted

Table 4.1 Notification procedures

19

Note:

The manager and accountant access the notification requests but the accountant responds

back in relation to the account balance of the company. The notification process helps in

making efficient demand predictions which helps the manager to easily make appropriate

decision while managing and controlling the business.

4.4.2 Following-Up the Customers

All company data is based on the customers and the company in this case takes the customers

as an asset, since it is from their orders or demands that business rotates. In the same manner,

a company should respect its customers by keeping their details confidential. In addition to

getting customer trust, the company should not only store the customer details but also make

use of it to enjoy a competitive advantage.

The customer information is captured from the invoice details filled while buying the goods

since it has his or her personal details as well as preferences or purchase habits. When the

customer details are to be fed in the system, it goes through the following trends of data

analysis and verification as seen in the table below;

Event Response to the Conditional Actions Taken

event

checking customer Yes - Update the customer details

existence

No Create account for the new customer

customer purchase having common habits and Send mail to the customers basing

habits and preferences on their preferences

preference

verifications

Send mail to the customers basing

Different habits and preferences on his! her preferences

Table 4.2 Following up customers

20

Note:

The cashier inputs the customer details in the system, after the system making its analysis for

the customer account, the customer will then be subscribed to the company mailing list. The

mailing operation are based on customer purchase habits whether weekly or a fortnight and

the preferences which are the commodities usually purchased by specific customers.

4.4.3 Data Management

The system also manages the company’s data in a secure mode where it is the manager and

the accountant having full access to all the company data. For other staff members to access

the system there will be specific views in relation to the data they need to access. In

summary, the system also manages the stock sales when the customer buys products from the

store, the stock purchase when the company purchases products from the suppliers and the

stock control which deals with inventory management of the products in stock. The

management of the company data deals with data storage and retrieval where the users will

feed in data and query the database from the graphical user interface where data retrieval is in

terms of reports or charts.

4,5 Requirement Analysis

4.5.1 Requirements of the Proposed System

Below are some of the hardware and software requirements of the proposed system.

4.5.1.1 User Requirements

1. The system shall be easy to use; hence the graphical user interface needs to be suitable.

2. Interactive, in case user interacts with the system; it should be able to provide real time

feedback hence generating timely reports.

3. The system should be able to provide information to the different users depending on their

levels and authority/responsibility in the organization.

21

4.5.1.2 Functional Requirements

Improvement of the system is intended to provide a means of capturing the manner in which

new technologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of business

operations.

1. Inputting customer details, business sales and purchases.

2. Generating summarized reports in real time as required.

3. Provide interaction between user and the system.

4. Provision of specific views to the different users of the system.

5. Enable user to capture changes that take place concerning company transactions.

6. Security should be paramount where usage is restricted to authorized users only.

4.5.1.3 Non Functional Requirements

These are requirements which define system properties and constraints that enable efficiency

in the system.

1. Availability: The system should be able to provide necessary information to the authorized

users.

2. Reliability: Access needs to be easy but secure and therefore it should be a reliable

backbone of the company information.

3. Functionality: The system should be able to perform its functions as expected that is to say

it should be secure.

4. Usability: In case of use, a system should be simple, interactive and easy.

5. Scalability: The system should be flexible and can easily adapt to change in case need

arises.

6. Performance: T he system should be able to respond to user requirements within the

expected time and also create necessary reports.

22

4.5.1.4 Specific Requirements

Server Machine Software

1. Windows Operating System.

2. Web server with Hyper Text Markup Language

3. Antivirus software and graphical browser installed.

4. MySQL Wamp server

Server Hardware

1. Pentium 3 and above.

2. Random Access Memory of 512 mega bytes and above.

3. Hard disk space of 3 gigabytes

4. Internet Connection

Client Machine

1. Internet Connection.

2. Web browser software.

Security

1. Password usage on the system.

2. System audits should be carried out.

23

4.6 System Design

The system design analysis of the general store information storage and retrieval management

system for Muru Enterprises Limited takes the following documentation.

4.6.1 Data Flow Diagrams

1. Symbols used for the Data Flow Diagrams

pProcess

Internal! External Entity

Data flow

Data Store

24

2. A Data Flow Diagram for the Proposed System

Response toNotificationdata

Figure 4.1 Data Flow Diagram for proposed system

ElPurchase Data

Update on

Stock

E3

Updates andNotification

E2

25

3. A Data flow Diagram for Tracking Customers and the Supply Notification

Operational Processes

Figure 4.2 Data Flow Diagram for customer tracking and supplier notification

processes.

Key:

Data flow: It is represented by an arrow and it shows the direction in which data is flowing.

External Entity: This is represented by a rectangle. They provide and consume data for

example customer, supplier.

Process: A process transforms input data into desired information for dissemination as input

to other processes, entities or data stores.

Data Stores: These represent data repositories.

26

Process Identity Description

Handle Makes updates to the inventory by feeding it with the product restocks or

1 .0 Purchase data new stocks according to their categories

Handle Manages the inventory updates according customer demand rates then issues

inventory notification messages to the staff for approval, then sends a delivery notice

2.0 Notification to the suppliers

Deals with the balancing of the invoices and after agrees to the transaction

Balance the by issuing the customer a receipt then sends the sales information to the

3.0 sales made inventory management data store.

Follow-up Handles the customer preferences basing on the new stock updates and

customer sends an update of the customer preference for easy tracking of the customer

4.0 preferences through the mailing list.

Check Gets the customer information and cross-checks with the system

Customer requirements then after sends the details to check if the customer already

4.1 Existence exists or is new.

Update

customer If the customer already exists basing on the verified details, then his / her

4.2 Account details are updated.

Create New

Customer Otherwise, if the customer details are new, the system creates an account for

4.3 Account him/her.

Process Basing on the customer preferences and the stock updates, mails are sent to

4.4 Mailing list the customer for easy tracking to maintain them and attract new ones.

Table 4.3 Processes and Descriptions

27

4.6.2 Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagram

1. Symbols Used

Entity

Connector

Relationship

Generalization

2. An Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagram for the Proposed System

Figure 4.3 Enhanced Entity Relationship I)iagram for proposed system,

Cashier

~••~ Supplies 1 .~

Ordersfor

0.. *

Belongs to

1..1

28

Key

Entity: This is an object that exists and distinguishable from other objects; like the supplier

entity.

Relationship: This is a con~elation between one entity and others; like a relationship between

the customer and the product.

Generalization: This is the process of minimizing differences between entities by

identifying their common characteristics.

Connector: This creates a link between two entities.

4,6,3 Extract from Data Dictionary for the General Store Description of

Entities

Entity name Description Aliases Occurrences

Staff General term describing all staff Employee An employee can issue several

employed by the general store. receipts, purchase products and

receive invoices from the

suppliers.

Customer This is a general term used to Client The customer gets receipt from

describe a person or organization the staff for the products bought.

that buys something from the

general store.

Product A general term used to describe Service Different products are supplied

anything that is produced, usually by different suppliers, purchased

for sale. by the staff and later sold to the

customer.

Supplier The general term used to mean a Service Different suppliers supply a

person or firm supplying goods. provider variety of products to the store.

Category General term to describe a group of Class Each product in the general store

products regarded as having certain belongs to a specific category

features in common. based on its features.

Manager A general term to describe a person Supervisor The manager is regarded as a

who controls a business, in other staff member too and can

29

words a general store.

This is a person who keeps and

checks the financial accounts and

sales in the general store.

Table 4.4 Entity descriptions

control, manage and monitor the

progress of the transactions in

the general store.

This is looked at asastaff whose

responsibility is to purchase,

receive invoices and issue

receipts to the customer in the

general store.

Note:

Identification of the main entity types to be used in the database required by the views to be

provided and their alternative names.

Cashier Cashier

Ordering This is a general term used to Choices This contains the quality of

represent the product potentially products desired by the

desired by the customer. customer.

30

4.6.4 Extract from Data Dictionary for General Store Showing Description

of Relationships

Entity name Multiplicity Relationship Entity name Multiplicity

Cashier l.A Purchases Product

1..1 Receives Invoice l..~

1..1 Issues Receipt

Manager 1 .. I Purchases Product 1.

Li Receives Invoice 1..~

1..i Issues Receipt 1..*

Customer 1 .. 1 Makes Ordering I .. *

1..1 Gets Receipts l~*

Product i..* Ordered for Ordering

1.. * Purchased by Staff 1.. 1

I .. * Supplied by Supplier 1.. *

1 ~ Belongs to Category 1 ..i

Category 1.. 1 Has Product 1.. *

1.. * Stocked in Inventory 1.

Supplier 1.. * Supplies Product 1.. *

1.. 1 Gives Invoice 1.. *

Ordering O..* Ordered for Product 1..*

1.. * Makes Customer 1.. 1

Table 4.5 Relationship descriptions

Note:

Identification of the relationships that will exist between the provided entity types and their

multiplicity constraints in the database to be created.

.3

Key:

Multiplicities: Expresses the number of entities to which another entity can be associated via

a relationship set.

1..l :-Exactly one entity occurrence

I.. * :-One or many entity occurrences

0.. * :-Zero or many entity occurrences

4.6.5 Extract from Data Dictionary for the General Store Showing

Description of Attributes

Entity Attributes Description Data type & Length Null Multvalue

name d

Manager staffNo Uniquely identifies a member of 5 variable characters No No

staff (manager).

MgName

Name First name of manager. 1 5 variable characters No No

iName Last name of manager. 1 Svariable characters No No

sex Gender of staff member. 1 character (M or F) Yes No

DOB Date of birth of staff member. Date No No

Cashier staffNo Uniquely identifies a member of 5 variable characters No No

staff (cashier).

AccName

Name First name of cashier. 1 Svariable characters No No

lNarne Last name of cashier. 1 Svariable characters No No

sex Gender of staff member. 1 character (M or F) Yes No

DOB Date of birth of staff member. Date Yes No

32

Customer cust id

cu stN am e

fN ame

INarne

Address

EAddress

Mob_No

suppNo

suppN ame

contact

telephone

email

address

Uniquely identifies a customer.

First name of a customer.

Last name of a customer

Location where customer resides

Email address of the supplier

Customer mobile number

Uniquely identifies a supplier

5 variable characters No

1 5variable characters

1 5variable characters

1 5variable characters

25variable characters

10 characters

5 variable characters

1 Ovariable characters

5 characters

25variable characters

1 6variable characters

5 variable characters

15variable characters

5 variable characters No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Supplier

No

No

No

No

No

Name of the person! company

that supplies a product

Telephone number of the

supplier

Email address of the supplier

Physical location of the supplier

No

No

No

No

No

Product

No

No

No

prodct id

prodctName

catgory_id*

unit_price

No

No

Uniquely identifies a product

This is a specific name

describing a specific product

Foreign key referencing

category identity number

The amount of money at which

the product goes

No

No

No

No11 integers No

Category category id Uniquely identifies the category 5 variable characters No No

catgry_nam Name of a certain category 1 5variable characters No No

ii

I where a specific product belongs

Ordering order_id Uniquely identifies order 5 variable characters No No

custmerNo* Foreign key referencing 5 variable characters No No

customer who ordered for the

product

product id* Foreign key referencing product 5 variable characters No No

order_date Date on which the order was Date No No

made

quantity or Number of products ordered 11 integers No No

dered

unit_price Amount of money per product 11 integers No No

ordered

Table 4.6 Attribute descriptions

Note:

This involves the identification and association of attributes with the appropriate entity or

relationship types with the specified domain types, primary keys and foreign keys.

An attribute name with an asterisk symbol (*) represents a foreign key in that particular table

and an underlined attribute represents a primary key for that table.

34

Chapter Five

System design

5.1 Introduction

This chapter explains the results achieved after the implementation of the system design as

shown in chapter four.

5.2 User Interface Design

The user interfaces are made up of forms and hyperlinks, which enable an authorized user to

link to other pages, they are created using HTML, CSS and PHP.

Typical functions of a user interface are;

1. To enable an authorized user log into the system

2. Enable user to view the available data and use it making strategic decisions.

3. Give the manager the ability to view reports to easily stock and restock basing on the

store status.

4. Enable storage and safety of the sensitive data entered into the system.

5. Provide the authorized users with the ability of querying forms.

6. The ability to retrieve data from the database for easy interpretation.

35

1. Login form for the general store system authorized users.

— E~ ~ JVj-L [

~nI~ L ‘~o1r’ULk~

Aut.horised users only

tisemame __________________IPassword I I

Login As Keneger

Figure 5.1 Login form for the general store system authorized users.

This is the interface which solves the problem of security on our system. For anyone to

access any information in the system they have to use the authorized detail that is the

username and password while logging in.

~~_T II\;:~~ij ~

rnr~i~

Login

Copy~tghts~ BS/19 ,AlI flgh~ reserved

36

2. Supplier Notification Form

Gei~1Womon~faqe&R~nwatSy~811 ‘

rUJ ~GER’SP EL

v~ewsnpp~D~ Supplle?s Notification Form::View Email Address

By:D~ Message~ O~m __

:~i~wA Sat~ r~omij:~e~

Figure 5.2 Ordered Items Interface

This is a form on the manager’s panel where he writes the notification message notifying

the suppliers on the store status that is if a product is out of stock and it is sent if form of

an email.

37

3. Manager’s form for adding a New Item

I- U

I0’ L

Pp~~

]‘~. LI’ b

~ )‘~••~JANAGEWS PANEL

::V~w Supplier De~::~ cn~er Dednfls::~ Supplier:Cu~ome,s By Ln~ttoas::Delete Supplier:~ ca~mer::Vlew AveliaMe Sules:Add Pru~::ReOISte, casNer

New ItemsSture uew tte~ in the deishese hum this eree.

Ouft Pd~

categoey Cooldng Od.

Tmep~

I Reset] [~]1Bra~ ~j

~ Local intran~ I Protected Mode: On

Figure 5.3 Manager’s fo m for adding new item.

This is one of the forms on the manager’s panel where a new product from the supplier

can be entered into the system together with its category, name, image, quantity

purchased and the unit price set.

38

5.4 Database Design

We used Mysqi, a database manipulation language because it supports relational databases,

data storage in multiple tables, its efficiency and availability.

In addition to the above, Mysql can run on different platforms like Windows, UNIX among

others, it is also embedded with SQL which enables querying of databases hence real time

report generation.

5,5 Interactions between User Interface and Database

The system can allows the user to interact with database through the use of MYSQL/PHP

connections and other scripting languages like Java Script and PHP. The interaction between

the interface and the database was achieved with the use of a web browser.

5.6 Generation of Reports

The general store information storage and retrieval management system has the ability to

return reports concerning;

1. Customer and supplier details

2. Product sales.

3. Information on orders.

39

Examples of sample reports generated by the system are illustrated below.

1. Login error message

I LIII! Li.t~iprist’~. I ij II4)II~ —I tru,u I IrIteIrit t:.pu ~c —

fle E~ Vmw Fe~es Teds Hds

4 Bed. • Seeds F~es

Màoss ec~~r*ei~&Ie~ - -~ Go Lk~n

Wrong iifoma~on, please check yo~ mfocma~oea end then logn ageia

Please try again

Stat ~ ~,mv~e ~( ... ~ZU &~i~ The~~ I~ ~ttp!/~c~•~ c~Saem Ko~... I ~ 1~51 ~J4

Figure 5.5 Login error message

This is a report which demonstrates an error message generated by the system requesting the

user to use the right information while logging in so as to gain access to it.

40

2. Customer details report

~

1] ~ 1\~ k~iL I P ~ ~ L~[I\~

I ~ ~ i~V~GER’S PANEL

:VTe~rSuppfl~D~Ik ID 1

~oWy:cugom~Bv Last Name : sha~a:D~ete~~1I~ Address : Nak~iabye

Bnail : sha1ara~yahoo~t*:M~a~Iah~e Phone No : p782986755~ Sex : frmale

Figure 5.6 Customer etails Report

This is an illustration of the report which shows the details of the customer entered into and

retrieve from the database.

41

5.7 System Achievements

1. Creation of a database for the entire system

2. Send data into the database

3. Retrieve data from the database

4. Create reports in real time

5. Enable follow up of customers and supplier notifications.

5.8 System Testing

The system was tested on computers with different Operating Systems, whose processors had

relatively high speed, which ensured good performance. All the machines used during the

testing had the Wamp server already installed on them that improved on the system

compatibility and database functionalities.

5.9 System Validation

To ensure that the system could function in a physical business environment, we consulted

several system developers and users, with its prototype to guide us on its functionality and

user friendliness and as expected it conformed to the business requirements. Concisely, the

system was able to meet its main objective.

42

Chapter Six

Conclusion and Recommendations

6.1 Introduction

This section of the report provides a summarized overview of how the objectives and tasks of

the project have been achieved, lessons learnt, recommendations as well as the conclusion.

6.2 Project Tasks Undertaken

The incomprehensible hardships faced in the daily man’s business world prompted us to

come up with an idea of designing a general store information management system so that

business can be simplified. However due to the short time given and the need to gather vast

information from various sources we were not able to do all what it takes to address these

problems in our system.

In our quest to gather information, questionnaires, interviews and observations were used

with an aim of getting the required information from various possible dimensions. Data flow

diagrams and Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagrams were employed during our Systems

Analysis and Design phase purposely to give us a comprehensible flow of information in our

proposed system.

6.2.1 An Insight into the General Store Information Storage and Retrieval

Management System

Simplicity is the dream everyone would wish to achieve in everyday life hence coming up

with an automated general store business system to make a business man’s life easy.

Transactions in a general store can be fun when the information about the company customer

together with the suppliers is managed and monitored effectively.

The strength of a company to manage and make use of its stored sensitive data promises its

excellence in today’s competitive business world. This triggers the need to use all the

43

Computer science techniques available in order to secure and make good use of the available

company data.

6.2.2 Lessons Learnt

The nature of our project required us to make research visits in various places including our

project case study (Muru Enterprise Limited).In this era, businessmen live a busy and

preprogrammed life and switching them to other abrupt programs is not an easy task. On so

many occasions, our project appointments with the company had to be postponed. The

rescheduling of these appointments taught us to live by other people’s programs and always

to be patient in order to achieve the best.

Computer science Projects were arranged in a way that a step had to come after the other and

deliverables made right from the very start. Concept papers had to come first, project

proposals next and so on according to the schedules set. This gave us a lesson to programme

everything we do in our everyday life through the use of task plans so as to be responsible

and organized citizens.

6.2.3 Obstacles to the project

The project resources like transport facilitations, stationary, hardware and software, research

and consultancy fees were not easy to come by and this made it very hard to deliver most of

the needed project expectations on time.

The consecutive project appointment rescheduling gave us hard times in the course of

researching for the project requirements. This resulted in the so many disappointments caused

by the company of our case study hence delaying the Current System and the New Proposed

System analysis phase.

Computer science projects were programmed to be done concurrently with other course units.

This made it difficult to balance the two obligations at the same time; you find that each

course unit has two tests, a coursework and an exam to be done at the end of the semester.

The project requirements were too much to be accomplished in such a short time given.

It is a good idea to work in a group since a lot is shared and sometimes it makes work easy.44

On the contrary, the group members were not co-operative on certain occasions. one had to

absent herself and leave the workload to one person. This slowed the work down and many

ideas were missed because they were never shared when they were needed

6.3 Recommendations

Business systems can be so interactive once they cater for everything that relates to the

business for example the business banking activities. This project can be improved by

embedding in more dynamic utilities that were not possible due to the project scope but can

improve the company’s business transactions.

The specified time span never favored us to gather all the information needed for a Business

System that is why we opted for a database for our information storage. It would be a good

idea for any intending project designer to use a data warehouse in this case because of its

numerous advantages over operational databases. Data warehouses grant the option of

viewing data in multiple dimensions and gives access to historical data making it easy for the

system users to make strategic decisions.

6.4 Conclusion

Operations of a general store business rotate on two entities that is the supplier who supplies

the products to the store and the customers who consume the products from the company.

Therefore much emphasis is needed while handling these two entities with an aim of attaining

a competitive advantage. Automated Business Systems make it easier to monitor, manage and

control all the transactions made with the proper use of the information available. All the

steps undertaken during this project have been so useful to us because we have come to

realize the way how things are done in the outside world that is out of university life. We

have gained skills in various fields like Business Management, Research and Design among

others. It has been so educative, inspirational and interesting that any computer science

student ought not to miss.

45

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48

Appendices

1. Questionnaire Guide

Questionnaire on the System Analysis for Muru Enterprises Limited.

This questionnaire is prepared in preparation of the general store information storage and

retrieval management system at Muru. A system analysis research which will facilitate the

design intended to improve on the current business system used at Muru general store which

will be customized to the present operations carried out.

An efficient, dependable, technologically advanced, sophisticated, comprehensive, business

system for a general store plays a vital role in the smooth or round functioning of a business

company.

You have been considered a key informative in this research and your views are very

important .The information provided will be treated confidentially.

Background of Information

Time interview started•

Time interview ended~

Name of general storeS

Locatiow

Name of intervieweeS

Tit1e/Position~

Name of interviewer

49

Processes used in the basic operations of the system

1. What are the basic processes carried out in this general store?

2. How do you obtain the data from the different business units within this general store?

3. What is the average time needed to process a transaction file before it is taken for

storage?

4. What are the sources of data input into this system?

5. What are the reports generated at the end of each process?

50

6. In which format is data presented after processing?

EEl Statistical ~Text

7. How often is the data entered into the system?

EZI Daily EEl Weekly ~ Monthly

Others

Explaiw

9. What are the procedures of work being done manually or electronically?

Connectivity and data flow within the system

10. How many computers are connected to the system in place?

LZI 0-5 ~ 5-10 ~ 10-15 ~ More

11. Which parties are interested in this data after it has been processed?

51

12. What data is shared with other business units?

Controls used to ensure system security

13. What performance controls are in place to ensure data security?

14. How do you ensure the confidentiality of the data in files during transmission?

Challenges faced while using the existing system

15. What are the problems faced while using the current system?

52

16. What do you think should be done to address the problems mentioned above?

17. What are the possible measures put in place to cater for the unpredictable disasters

that may damage the data in storage?

18. How do you rate the performance of the existing system?

EZ Very good LZI Good El Fair El Poor

EEl Very poor

Please explain why you rate it that way:

3~~

Appendex 2

• -- phpMyAdmin SQL Dump

-- Version 2.11.7

-- http://www.phpmyadmin.net

-- Host: locaihost

-- Generation Time: Jul 15, 2009 at 02:25 PM

-- Server version: 5.0.51

-- PHP Version: 5.2.6

SET SQL MODE=”NO AUTO VALUE ON ZERO”;

-- Database: ‘muru

-- Table structure for table ‘cashiers’

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ‘cashiers’ (‘id’ varchar(10) NOT NULL,

‘fname’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘Iname’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘address’ varchar(20) NOT NULL,

‘email’ varchar(25) NOT NULL,

‘phone’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘Sex’ varchar(6) NOT NULL,

‘district’ varchar(20) NOT NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (‘id’)

54

) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSETIatin1;

-- Dumping data for table ‘cashiers’

INSERT INTO ‘cashiers’ (‘id’, ‘fname’, ‘Iname’, ‘address’, ‘email’, ‘phone’, ‘sex’,

‘district’) VALUES

(‘1’, ‘Alikira’, ‘Richard’, ‘KIU’, ‘alikilunah@yahoo.co.uk’, ‘0782516624’, ‘Male’,

‘Hoima’);

-- Table structure for table ‘customers_details’

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ‘customers_details’ (‘id’ varchar(3) NOT NULL,

‘fname’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘iname’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘address’ varchar(20) NOT NULL,

‘email’ varchar(20) NOT NULL,

‘phone’ varchar(12) NOT NULL,

‘sex’ varchar(6) NOT NULL,

‘district’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (‘id’)

) ENGINEMyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latinl;

-- Dumping data for table ‘customers_details’

55

INSERT INTO ‘customers_details’ (‘id’, ‘fname’, ‘Iname’, ‘address’, ‘email’, ‘phone’,

‘sex’, ‘district’) VALUES

(‘1’, ‘Adum’, ‘Joseph’, ‘Mbarara’, ‘adumjoseph@yahoo.com’, ‘0782516624’, ‘Male’,

‘Pader’),

1~~ ‘~ ‘‘ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~‘V ~ ‘ ‘ ~ ~ , , ),

-- Table structure for table ‘details’

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ‘details’ (‘fname’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘iname’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘item’ varchar(20) NOT NULL,

‘qty’ int(11) NOT NULL,

‘price’ int(11) NOT NULL,

‘quantity’ int(11) NOT NULL,

‘remaining’ int(11) NOT NULL,

‘total’ bigint(11) NOT NULL,

‘odate’ date NOT NULL

) ENGINE=~MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET4atin1;

-- Dumping data for table ‘details’

INSERT INTO ‘details’ (‘fname’, ‘iname’, ‘item’, ‘qty’, ‘price’, ‘quantity’, ‘remaining’,

‘total’, ‘odate’) VALUES

(‘Adum’, ‘Joseph’, ‘Detergents’, 50, 2000, 200, 8, 80, ‘2009-07-28’),

(‘Adum’, ‘Joseph’, “, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ‘0000-00-00’);

56

-- Table structure for table ‘item’

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ‘item’ (‘id’ int(3) NOT NULL,

‘item’ varchar(15) NOT NULL,

‘uprice’ int(11) NOT NULL,

‘cat’ varchar(20) NOT NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (‘id’)

) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET1atin1;

-- Dumping data for table ‘item’

INSERT INTO ‘item’ (‘id’, ‘item’, ‘uprice’, ‘cat’) VALUES

(2, ‘Millet’, 5000, ‘Grains and Cerial’),

(3, ‘Millet’, 5000, ‘Grains and Cerial’),

(4, ‘Homo’, 2000, ‘Detergent’),

(0, “, 0, ‘Cooking oil’);

-- Table structure for table ‘sales’

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ‘sales’ (‘id’ int(4) NOT NULL,

‘uprice’ int(8) NOT NULL,

57

INSERT INTO ‘useraccounts’ (‘member_id’, ‘first name’, ‘last_name’, ‘username’,

‘user_role’, ‘password’, ‘security_qn’, ‘security_ans’, ‘DateTime’) VALUES

(1, ‘W_LIS Member’, ‘info system’, ‘Manager’, ‘Manager’, ‘manager’, ‘will it work?’,

‘why no!’, ‘2009-07-12 08:01:29’),

(2, ‘manager2’, ‘manager2’, ‘manager2’, ‘manager2’, ‘manager2’, ‘will it work?’, ‘why

not!’, ‘2009-07-13 22:27:13’);

60