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Your sister owns a small clothing store. During a conversation at a family dinner, she mentions her frustration with having to manually track and reorder high demand items. She would like an automated system but has a very small budget.

Imdadul Haque khan

CIS 210

 Prof Daniel Batelka

Assignment 1

Contents 2

Introduction: 3

The Required Equipments : 3

Maintenance : 6

The Total Cost involved In The Creation The System : 8

Workflow Diagram : 9

Conclusion : 10

References : 11

These days particularly in the past 10 years, even many smaller businesses have understood that computerized inventory management systems are very useful, accurate and make their jobs much easier than doing the same things manually. Inventory control is important to assure control in businesses that handle transactions revolving around consumer goods. The inventory control system must be able to warn the vendor when one of the items in the store is going to be out of stock soon and make the person who handles this kind of thing reorder (if it is a good system of course), otherwise maybe one day some important items can be out of stock, affecting the business negatively. Simply saying “we don't have that stuff right now”, is somewhat less than fully professional.

Inventory management technology is a mix of hardware and software designed to add reliability to inventory accounting, reduce incidents of theft and facilitate inventory audits. Individual inventory items or batches of items could be equipped with RFID tags that identify the item type, cost, price, shipment number, date of shipment and virtually any other useful information. Software inventory management solutions replace pen-and-paper systems, reducing the time required to account for inventory additions and subtractions. We have an average budget to set up this system, so I will buy two laptops, wireless router, two barcode scanners, barcode printer, printer and the internet service. For start up we will begin with the use of the inflow inventory system from Archon Systems. The software will help my sister to take orders and deduct items out of the inventory with a single click. This software will also generate reports, one of which will show the demand for a given product. We will also setup the laptop with wireless internet access which will enable her to conduct sales and do inventory with the same equipment using a wireless barcode scanner.

These are what we should have as minimum equipment to setup an accurate inventory management system:

1. Laptop or Desktop Computer- Laptop or computer with wireless access can allow to her to manage her sales and create or manage inventory items.

  2. Wireless Router – The wireless router will assure wireless access point for the laptop or computer. This modifies laptop to be mobile for inventory goals.

  3. Barcode scanner – A barcode scanner is an electronic device for reading printed barcodes. This barcode scanner will be used with the mobile laptop for sales and inventory.

  4. Barcode label printer – A barcode label printer is computer hardware for printing barcode labels or tags that will be attached to the inventory.

  5. Printers/ Faxes – This equipments can be used for make an order, send faxes, print receipts, reports or etc...

Of course all of this equipment costs a portion of the profits. It depends on the business how much money can be expended on an inventory system. If the business has large budget, that would allow for a more accurate, user friendly and secure system. If we talk about the average budget these are some prices for the equipment:

1- Laptop or desktop computer ( these days nobody wants to use desktop computer, so I will skip pricing of this item) - We can buy a Toshiba Satellite C855-S5343 PSCBLU 15.6 inch laptop with an i3-3110M processor, 2.4 GHz speed, 6GB DDR3 RAM, 500 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive and Windows 8 Professional 64-bit operating system at a cost of $459.99 (2013, Amazon).

2- Wireless router – We can buy media link wireless N broadband router for 49.99 ( 2013 Amazon) The media link provides fast speed and reliable variety. It will connect computers, wireless printers, and other Wi-Fi devices at speeds up to 150 Mbps. Internal antenna technology provides broad wireless coverage throughout your home. 150 Mbs- 2.4 Ghz- 802.11n w (2013, Amazon).

3- USB Barcode Scanner – We can buy newest model Tao Tronics TT-BS007 wireless cordless handheld barcode scanner bar code reader for 179.99 (Amazon 2013) Increases application design flexibility to better meet your specific needs. Cordless and anti-interference scanning with secure wireless transmission of data helps users increase productivity and cut costs while providing free movement throughout the workspace. It has an integrated non-volatile memory which secures data even when it is out of signal or powered off.

4- Barcode Label printer – We can buy a DYMO label writer 450 turbo high speed for 63.09 (Amazon 2013). If you want to get cheaper one, you can get around 15$ too. DYMO Label version 8 software enables you to create and print address, shipping, file, folder and barcode labels.

5- Printer – we can buy a Brother HL 2270 DW compact Laser Printer with wireless Networking and Duplex. We can use it for many purpose such as printing receipts or reports, also we can use it as a fax machine. (Amazon 2013).

Maintenance shouldn't be delayed for any reason. It is very important because these kinds of electronic devices can be broke easily. They can break for many reason such as high heat: if they work nonstop more than 5 hours, they can get overheated, which the equipment cannot handle. Probably not in the first week but most certainly you can expect failure within three weeks. In that case you have to purchase new equipment which is not good for the business. Equipment takes four or more hours or more than 10% of its monthly maintenance budget to repair. If equipment fails three or more times per month, repairs need to be performed externally. Equipment can be repaired in less than four hours at a cost between 2 and 10% of its monthly maintenance budget. If equipment fails fewer than three times per month, equipment costs of less than 2% of its monthly maintenance budget can be allotted to have it repaired at a later date.

Software – Inflows Inventory manages products and inventory. It keeps products organized with pictures, prices, and categories. Inflow can easily handle 10,000+ products on a regular PC. It uses barcode scanners to manage your inventory more quickly and accurately. Inflow is compatible with most barcode scanners you can plug into your computer. It tracks inventory in multiple locations uses sub-locations to more precisely track aisle numbers, bin numbers, etc. It gives a full history of any inventory movements or adjustments to track down any problems or theft. It uses a simple work-flow to take orders and deduct inventory with one click. It uses advanced work-flow to track more detailed things like shipping information, specialized picking, and customer returns. It works well with professionally designed invoices. We can customize the logo, color and fonts to suit your business' style. We can use the “Reorder Stock button” to automatically generate purchase orders for products that are low in stock. It ensures accuracy by printing or emailing purchase orders with both your own product codes and the vendor's product codes. Inflow can automatically keep track of your product costs, using a moving average if they change. It can provide a graphed timeline of sales, profits or inventory levels to see how the business is doing visually.

Customizable reports to get detailed information like total sales, total taxes, best-selling products, products on back order, and how long your inventory will last can be obtained.

We can have everyone working off the same data in real time using multi-user mode. We can restrict who has access to see or modify usage. Inflow allows you to create different login users, each with a different set of access rights such as who can reorder stock, who can make a sale or who can do inventory. Inflow allows you to rename any labels or messages within the software. Inflow integrates with Excel or QuickBooks by importing and exporting data in the industry-standard CSV format. Inflow is offered in three different editions. They are available in basic, regular and premium. I recommend a purchase of regular edition for a cost of $299. This will allow unlimited product listing and up to five user license. It also give you access to one of the essential reports which can give data on high demand items (inflowinventory.com). The total cost to completely set up this process will be approximately $ 1350.00.

There will not be any ongoing cost for any minor software upgrades. Inflow will provide them free of charge. Internet service will be provided by Comcast Business Class at a cost of $89.99 per month which will include phone service. This will offset the cost currently paid for phone service. Other maintenance service will include thermal paper for the label printer at a cost of $10.99 printer ink and ink for the inkjet printer. There are 1280 labels in the one roll of Zebra compatible thermal paper.

1.Shelly, Rosenblatt. (2012). Systems Analysis and Design (9th ed.). Boston: Thomson Course

Technology.

2.Systems Analysis. (2009). General format. Retrieved from http://www.systemsanalyst.com/.

3. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/types-inventory-management-systems-2195.html

  4. http://www.inflowinventory.com/software-features.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Compatible-Thermal-compatible-TLP2844-Z-TLP3844Z/dp/B0035ILT0Y/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1342577509&sr=8-7&keywords=Zebra+Compatible+Direct+Thermal+Labels