Introduction
As a premium independent wireless retailer, Wireless Nation, offers exceptional cellular services at two of its convenient locations in Bowie and District Heights, Maryland.
Wireless Nation was founded on the belief that everyone should have access to the safety and convenience of wireless service, irrespective of income and credit histories. With no deposit requirements or credit checks, Wireless Nation offers a truly hassle-free process for purchasing and activating services for their customers through well-known wireless providers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon. Since 2005, as the proliferation of cell phones increasingly replaced landlines, so did the number of new customers at the Wireless Nation stores (Stringfield, Pierce, Hsia, 6024). Today, Wireless Nation’s business locations include services such as new phone activations, cellular accessories, bill payments, unlocked international cellular phones, and cell phone repairs. Revenue at each location exceeds well over half a million dollars. In spite of continuous business success, Wireless Nation continues to use primitive point-of-sales systems to support its daily activities.
Existing System
Wireless Nation uses Excel worksheets to track its administrative and human resources activities, product inventories, employee commissions, carrier bill payments, and repair orders. Customers are given manually written receipts for their transactions, which are tracked and entered into an Excel worksheets at the close of business. Store managers are required to stay after store-closing to fulfill these administrative duties, resulting in overtime. The owner is then emailed a copy of these worksheets on a daily basis. Procurement and in-house inventory transfers are recorded in pen-and-paper documentation, followed by data-entry into extensive spreadsheets.
Business Process Redesign – Recommendations
Business transactions have come a long way. From the fundamental ways of exchanging goods or “barter system” to the more complex “e-commerce” or doing business transactions over the internet. With technology rapidly changing and upgrading, Wireless Nation must adopt automation of point-of-sale and inventory systems to step ahead in the game. This progressive transformation will liberate the company from extensive paperwork and unnecessary loss of time and revenue, since the computation of daily sales and inventory control will be done automatically through the use of Wireless Pro POS and Inventory Control System, giving accurate, up-to-the-minute assessment of inventory and revenue generation. For the procurement department, knowing which products are in need, will help avoid over stocking and greatly minimize unnecessary expenses. Consistently stocking hard-to-find items can also add to a competitive advantage over much larger competitors. In the long run, all transactions will be correctly and uniformly documented, with the generation of reports only a few keystrokes away. Finally, we hope that with the development of the said system, Wireless Nation will become a company more competitive and quality wise, more worthy of recognition in the local marketplace. With this in mind, we, at the JasKap Technology group, hope that upon the successful completion of this transition Wireless Nation will find Wireless Pro POS and Inventory Control System of great value and an indispensable asset to their company, allowing greater customer satisfaction.
Scope
The Wireless Pro POS and Inventory Control System platform will provide quick, efficient, and intuitive use of inventory and sales data, giving Wireless Nation a 360 degree visibility of all facets of their business for maximum profitability. Customer service representatives will be able to process sales transactions, accept bill payments, and check current inventory levels and commissions earned instantly, through the easy to use and understand GUI, supplemented by filters for search options, all under the ‘POS’ tab. The procurement department will be able to check current inventory levels, enter new inventory and new inventory type, and create purchase orders under the ‘Inventory’ tab. All users will be able to generate reports to track customer sales and patterns, analyzing sale of inventory items, inventory types, and suppliers, dependent on their account permissions under the ‘reports’ section. Lastly, the administrator will control the master account responsible for creating and modifying customer service and procurement associate accounts.
The context data flow diagram below helps to establish the initial project scope, showing the main interfaces with its environment.
CONTEXT DIAGRAM – Wireless Standard POS & Inventory Control System
Login system Validate Account Check Current Products Login/Logout
Create/ Modify Employee Produce Product Reports Produce Product Reports (Add, Delete, Edit) Check Current Inventory levels
Generate Employee Timesheet Create New Inventory Type
Create/ Modify Inventory Type
(Add, Delete, Edit) Create Purchase Order
Change Admin Password
Login/Logout System Produce Purchase History Report
Enter Purchases Update Product Inventory
Print/Preview Customer Receipt Add State Regulatory Tax
Enter Amount Received/Payment Mode Generate Change
View Inventory Validate Bill Payment Account
View Commissions Validate Repair Status
In the following entity relationship diagram (ERD) the data that will be stored by the Wireless Pro POS system is depicted in terms of the entities and the relationships described by this data.
PROBLEM STATEMENT MATRIX
PROJECT: Wireless Standard POS & Inventory System PROJECT MANAGER: Dr. G
CREATED BY: LAST UPDATED BY:
DATE CREATED: 04/19/2015 DATE LAST UPDATED: MM/DD/YYYY
Brief Statements of Problem, Opportunity, or Directive Urgency Visibility Annual Benefits Priority or Rank Proposed Solution
1. No inventory control currently exists. Phones are easily misplaced
2 months
High
In the thousands.
1
Bar Code scanning system
2. The paper receipt system prolongs the transaction time. No uniformity exists since sales rep can miss important information.
2 months
High
In the thousands
2
POS System with receipt printer
3. The employees are recording number of hours worked on a paper time card. HR Manager must go to each store to collect the time cards physically and then calculate paycheck. This process takes almost one week to accomplish.
2 months
High
In the thousands
3 Log-in/out system
4. For Sales Tax compliance purposes, managers must go through each transaction to calculate the cumulative sales tax paid in a calendar month.
2 months
Medium
In the thousands
5 In built cumulative sales tax calculator in the POS option
5. No ability to check inventory across all branches for product availability.
2 months
Medium
In the thousands
4 Being able to check stock level across all branches by adding Stock Viewer Option
Feasibility
Using the PIECES framework of James Wetherbe, there are six categories of the overall business process that can be corrected and improved by the use of the Wireless Standard POS and Inventory control system (Bentley, 89). Faster transaction performance can be achieved by the customer service representatives by the use of barcode scanners, automated POS and receipt printers. Business information, such as transaction and inventory data will be saved instantly and more efficiently. With a better grasp of current inventory levels, the procurement department will be able to make better purchasing decisions, helping to control overall costs and improve business economics. Data access will be controlled by the use of user accounts, maintaining overall data security. Lastly, the service to business customers and its internal employees will be immensely improved. Using Wireless Pro POS system will assure Wireless Nation that its customers are getting the most professional treatment, through fast-paced transactions and well-informed customer service representatives. Producing a clearly printed, uniform computerized receipt, complete with items sold, cash tendered and a return policy will give Wireless Nation the credibility it seeks in the local marketplace.
For a small business the number one contributor to lost revenue is the inability to efficiently control inventory, thus, giving this problem the highest ranking amongst all others. BY
Wireless Pro is a cloud-based POS system, requiring no physical maintenance of servers at the Wireless Nation locations. To achieve the proposed system, below is a list of hardware and software requirements:
Hardware requirements:
• Workstations – 1 at each location
• Processor: 2.6 GHZ Intel Pentium IV
• Bar Code Scanner
• Receipt Printer
• Magnetic Stripe Reader
Software requirements:
• Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 and up
• Dedicated IP Address and 24-hour Internet availability via DSL, Fios or Cable modem.
Conclusion
To achieve effective project planning and deliverance, we at JasKap Technologies will strive to attain success by constantly monitoring the scope, schedule and cost of this project. These triple constraints are fundamental issues for all facets of organizational success and will touch every aspect of the POS transition project. Rightly so, our insightful project manager will be able to identify early warning signals and potential risks, enabling him/her to take the necessary corrective action to keep the project under control and the quality of the project uncompromised. Using the FAST methodology of system development with an iterative approach, we will clearly define the periodic milestones and the deliverables to our stakeholders at Wireless Nation, documenting every step of the way. System models, such as data flow, and entity relationship diagrams, will be facilitated to produce a clear, logical design, to improve communication between users, analysts, designers, and builders. These agile modeling solutions will help to prevent excessive system modeling and degeneration of the project, refraining a condition of analysis paralysis (Bentley, 86). To accelerate the requirement analysis and design phase, and to effectively manage schedule (time), a prototype will be designed for users to actively understand what they want when they see it.
Taking guidance from the Clinger–Cohen Act of 1996, JasKap Technologies emphasizes an integrated framework of technology aimed at efficiently helping their clients perform more productively by work process redesign, and linking planning and investment strategies to the budget process, making sure all along that the requirements are being intelligently fulfilled.
Bibliography
1. Bentley, W. (2007). System Analysis & Design Methods. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
2. Stringfield J. D., Pierce, C., Hsia, J. ( n.d.). The Cell Phone Universe: Methodological Considerations for Creating Cellular and Landline Telephone Estimates from Nielsen Television Surveys. Retrieved from https://www.amstat.org/sections/SRMS/Proceedings/y2010/Files/400124.pdf
3. Department of Commerce, Office of the Chief Information Officer. Summary of Major Provisions of Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. Retrieved from http://ocio.os.doc.gov/ITPolicyandPrograms/Capital_Planning/DEV01_003758
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