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Low Cost automated inventory system

Low cost automated inventory system

Today’s technology demands small businesses to utilize the available technology and gain the competitive advantage. My sister’s business will be far much better an automated inventory system as compared to the current manual system for managing the inventory. The major advantage of utilizing this technology is the ability to substitute the time consuming and more expensive processes with a much more reliable and low-cost system (Quintero, C. 2009). The system will also help to track the business merchandise and keep track of the business items individually. In this discussion, a detailed design of a low cost automated inventory system and the costs for such a system.

Automated inventory system is a software or group of related software that allows a business to access and input their inventory tasks and allow them to be tracked in a consistent, reliable and fast way. They make use of identifiers for individual items like barcodes and scanners for the goods being sold. These processes are controlled by software that takes the input in the form of barcodes or any other manner and processes relevant information to give out the required output. With the system, guesswork is minimized and the company can focus on other sectors to maximize its profit. The system makes accurate predictions on sales and also allows updates on the inventory.

Having an automated inventory system is critical in any business because they are very helpful in retail sales. Automated inventory system helps to categorize and access business data in a competent and reliable way. The system will, therefore, be designed to utilize the computer resources and other related resources as follows.

Required equipment

To design a complete automated inventory management system that is inexpensive and efficient, necessary equipment would include;

- A personal computer

- One long wireless antenna cable together with a circuit board

- Automation circuit board (probably the Rockwell printed board)

- A unit for microcontroller PIC1F4550

- G-Mobile Computer that is handheld

- Barcodes

- Toggle switch kit

This system will use the low-cost resources and make the inventory management process automated through the use of wireless infrared signals. The signals will involve a manual check but the automation will be still in place (Ismail, S., 2010). Manual check, in this case, will be to double-check the system and ensure the automation process is on track. In addition, automation in the inventory process may experience a lag and so there is the need to check the process manually in case automation may be outdated and put it in order. The customers may be disappointed and make the services offered look bad if these lags are not rectified in time.

System working principles and maintenance

The proposed system will have a configuration (at least one) that contain total stock items and a platform that is configured to support this bin of item plurality. In addition, there will be a wireless circuit designed for each configured platform and a wireless reader gadget along the system. The wireless reader will also have a microcontroller unit to perform the required logic and will be configured to read the wireless signals for individual items after the printed circuit board has been set up. The printed circuit board will also be created in a way that it will include a configured switch that complete the circuit board automatically. A sensor will also be attached to a switch to make it either active or inactive depending on the preference. The circuit will, therefore, transmit a RFID signal. The importance of this automated system is that the wireless nature of the circuits makes the system portable and can be handheld.

Tracking the inventory

Maintaining the stock and the system will be an automatic method that involves the provision of storage bin plurality and then providing a platform for the bins developed. The platform is just a wireless circuit that has a printed circuit board, a sensor configured for each platform switch and a switch that is designed in a way to selectively complete the circuit platform (Smith, J., and Tan, B., 2013).

Automatically maintaining the stock will involve the use of a wireless reader gadget that comprises at least one microprocessor unit which is configured to accept the signals from the circuit processing board and process the bin level data associated with each platform. The scanner device will then retransmit the wireless signal into the personal computer in the form of electrical signals (Gaither, N., 2002). This will create generate an input for the inventory software that will be distributed to all the nodes of the computer network of the business. The information can then be arranged in a particular order by further using software called database management system or DBMS. This will facilitate the storage and access of different information related to the inventory of the business.

Cost

The costs of establishing and deploying these systems vary widely depending on the size of the business and amount of information to be processed. Basically, the system deployment cost ranges from few dollars to thousands of dollars. The system also comes with numerous features that make the costs vary even more. However, for this business, keeping the system simple will and yet functional will improve the returns greatly. To further develop a specific budget for this system, the costs can be broken down into individual system components as follows;

System maintenance

The system also need to be maintained by ensuring all the automated sensors are up to task and the calibrations on the toggles switches are clear. The sections with the bins for keeping the inventory will also need to be checked on a regular basis and ensure that the items are arranges neatly. Additionally, the items should be arranged in a correct order so that the system can be able to track it conveniently. This is because having a poor organization of the items in the bins will give a wrong impression of the height to the system and the system will in turn recommend more ordering even if the items were enough (Smith, J. and Tan, B., 2013). The following diagram shows the flow of activities from one subsystem to another in an automated inventory management process;

References

Gaither, N. and Frazier, G. (2002). Operations management. Australia: South-Western/Thomson Learning.

Ismail, S. (2010). A New Automated Sample Transfer System for Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis. Journal of Automated Methods and Management in Chemistry, 2010, pp.1-8.

Quintero, C. and Kariv, I. (2009). Design and Implementation of an Automated Compound Management System in Support of Lead Optimization. Journal of Biomolecular Screening, 14(5), pp.499-508.

Smith, J. and Tan, B. (2013). Handbook of stochastic models and analysis of manufacturing system operations. New York, NY: Springer.

• Teacher comment on why I did not get full grades please keep this in mind.

Feedback to Learner 1/22/17 7:19 PM

I’ve never been a cashier, but it seems to me that we’d want:
UPC scanner.
Computer.
Point of sale software system that can work with a cash drawer, credit card processing or bar code reader to make the POS software system automated. It should maintain inventory database and automatically reorder items.
Connectivity to suppliers via the internet.
1. Describe all the necessary equipment. (5 points) – POS software, Credit card reader, Internet connectivity?
2. Explain the costs involved in the creation of the system. (10 points) – POS software, Credit card reader, connectivity costs?
3. Describe the ongoing maintenance that will be required. (15 points) – software / hardware / security / connectivity / scanner / printer?
4. Provide a workflow diagram to illustrate how the system will work. (30 points) – Should depict customer purchase to restock process flow using the system’s components (i.e. scanner, POS software/computer, Internet). How does the reorder automatically take place and credit card info get transmitted?
5. Clarity and writing mechanics. (10 points) – good.