PROJECT PLAN

The Punjab Communications Limited, Mohali has assigned the following project:

Project Name:
Inventory Management System

Project Associate:
Miss Kamalpreet Kaur

Team structure
Often a team of people is assigned to a project. For a team to work as a cohesive
group and contribute most to the project, the people in the team have to be organized in
some manner. The structure of the team has a direct impact on the product quality and
project productivity. Two basic philosophies are involved in organizing a team: ego less
team and chief programmer team.
The structure of the team was ego less team, which is sometimes also called
democratic team. Ego less team consists of ten or less number of programmers, five in
our case. The goal of the team was set by consensus, and the input from every member
was taken for major decisions. Group leadership rotated among the group members. The
structure allowed from all members which led to better decisions in difficult problems.

Project Team
Sagar Bathla Amar Singh
Chandni Jindal Preeti Sharma
Eveneet Kaur Anjana
Brij Mohan Singh Harsimran Kaur
Harsimran Singh Gurpreet Kaur
Navreet Kaur Ravinder Kataria

Phases involved in the development of the system

 • Identified the needs and benefits and held meetings with the employees of
PUNCOM and studied and identified the working of the existing system.
• Established problem statement.
• Prepared the software requirement specifications.
• Identified the functionalities to be built into modules and prepared DFDs and
flowcharts etc.
• Pseudo code prepared.
• Actual coding started.

The programming languages and the development tools are the most critical factor in
the functioning of the developed system. So, proper attention has to be paid while
selecting these tools. The system uses Microsoft C#.NET as front end and SQLSERVER
2000 as backend.

WORKING SCHEDULE

Table 1.Schedule
JULY AUGUST SEP OCT NOV DEC
2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007
SRS --------- ------------
DESIGN -------- --------
CODING -------- --------
TESTING -------- --------
MAINTENANCE --------
DOCUMENTATION --------

INTRODUCTION TO INVENTORY CONTROL

INVENTORY:
Inventory is a detailed list of those movable items which are necessary to manufacture a
product and two maintain the equipment and machinery in good working order. The
quantity and the value of every item are also mentioned in the list.
INVENTORY CONTROL
• Inventory control was concerned with achieving an optimum balance between two
competing objectives. The objectives are :
1.) To maximize investment in inventory
2.) To maximize the service levels of the firms customers and its own
operating department’s

• Inventory control may be defined as a scientific method of finding out how much
stock should be maintained in order to meet the production demands and be able
to provide right type of material at right time in the right quantities and at
competitive prices.
INVENTORY CLASSIFICATION
• Inventory may be classified as follows :
1.) Raw inventories: they include raw materials and semi finished products
supplied by another firm which are raw items for the present industry.
2.) In process inventories: they are semi finished goods at various stages of
manufacturing cycle.
3.) Finished inventories: there are the finished goods lying in the stock rooms
and waiting dispatch.
4.) Indirect inventories: They include spare parts needed for proper operation,
repair & maintenance during manufacturing cycle.
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
• To manage the various kinds of inventories two alternative control procedures can
be used.
(i) Order point system:
1. This has been the traditional approach to inventory control. In this system,
the items are restocked when the inventory levels become low.
2. Lot size and reorder point calculations are the most spectacular aspect of
inventory management. Once the calculations are complete, the routing
commences for checking deliveries & physical count of the amount on
hand.
 (ii) Materials requirements planning (MRP)
1. MRP is sometimes thought of as an inventory control procedure. It is
really more than that.
2. MRP is the technique used to plan & control manufacturing inventories.
3. MRP is a computational technique that converts the master schedule for
end products into a detailed schedule for the raw material and components
used in the end products.

The detailed schedule identifies the quantities of each raw material and component item.
It also tells when each item must be ordered & delivered so as to meet the master
schedule for the final products.
It is important that the proper control procedure be applied to each of the four types of
inventories as explained earlier.
In, general MRP is appropriate control procedure for inventory type (i) and (ii) raw
materials purchased components & in process inventory.
Order point systems are often considered as the appropriate procedure to control
inventory types (iii) and (iv) finished goods, repair parts.

INVENTORY CONTROL, ITS OBJECTIVE AND HOW TO ACHIEVE THEM

Inventory control aims at keeping track of inventories. In other words, inventories
of required quality and in desired quantities should be made available to different
departments as and when they need. This is achieved by:
(a) Purchasing material at an economical price, at a proper time and in sufficient
quantities so as not to run short of them at any instant.
(b) Providing a suitable & secure storage location.
(c) Providing enough storage space.
(d) A definite inventory identification system.
(e) Adequate and responsible store room staff.
(f) Suitable requisition form.
(g) Up-to-date & accurate record keeping.
(h) Periodic inventory check up.
 (i) Division of inventory under A, B & C items, exercising the control accordingly &
removing obsolete inventory.

A good control over the inventories offers the following advantages:

(a) One does not face shortage of materials.
(b) Materials of good quality and procured in time minimizes defects in finished
goods.
(c) Delays in production schedules are avoided.
(d) Production targets are avoided.
(e) Accurate delivery dates can be ascertained and the industry builds up reputation
and better relations with customers.

FUNCTIONS OF INVENTORIES
Inventories
• Separate different operations from one another and make them independent, so
that each operation (starting from raw product to finished good) can be performed
economically. For example ordering of raw material can be carried out
independently of the finished goods distribution and both of these operations can
be made low cost operations say by ordering raw material and distributing
finished goods in one big lot, than in small batch sizes. Besides economy, the men
and the machinery also can be better utilized if the operations are separated and
carried out in various departments. Than if coupled and tied at one place.
• Maintain smooth & efficient cost production flow.
• Purchase in desired quantities and thus nullify the effects of changes in prices or
supply.
• Keep processes continually operational.
• Create a motivational effect. A person may be tempted to purchase more if
inventories are displayed in bulk.
Chapter 3

PROJECT WORK
 SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
Introduction
The system development life cycle method is classically thought of as a set of
activities that analysts, designers and users carry out and develop and implement the
system. The main activities that are included in this approach are as follows:
• Recognition of the needs
• Feasibility study
Technical Behavioral Feasibility
System scope and objectives
Statement of new scope and objectives
• Analysis
Logical model of system engineering, Data Dictionary, DFDs.
• Design
Cost/Benefit analysis
Design of alternative system
Implementation Specification
• Implementation
User-friendly documentation
Conversion of design specification into working programs
• Post implementation and maintenance

Recognition of need
Recognition of the need refers to recognizing the needs of the system. It lets you
define exactly what the problem is? Our system is Inventory Management System. The
basic requirement is to manage the inventory.
This included the following:
• Proper study of the existing system.
• Study of the new features to be added.
• Held discussions of how problem could be sorted out.
• Working to manage the inventory.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
SYSTEM REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION
This section specifies the user and the system requirements of the complaints and calls of
the office. The data produced during the fact finding investigation are analyzed to
determine requirement specifications, the description of features for a new system.
Purpose of SRS
• To provide an unambiguous and complete statement of functionality provided
by the system.
• To clearly define the boundaries of the system.
• To establish linkage with other modules and external environment.
• To define complete data flow of the system.
• To identify inputs and outputs of the system.
• To identify the sub system within subsystems( if exists)
• To provide the basis for the preparation of the system design description.

PRODUCT DEFINITION
Problem definition
• Lot of paperwork is involved.
• Tracking of complaints is difficult.
• It is very time consuming.
• The storage and retrieval of files takes a lot of time and space resulting in the
increase in the expenditure of maintaining the file.
• The whole system is non-centralized.
• The system is very error prone.
• More manpower in required maintaining the whole system.
 • It is very difficult to produce a summary report based on the number of
complaints handled in the particular time.
• Duplication of records.
• Search is time consuming.
Functions to be provided
The aim of the project is to make some changes in the inventory management
system of the organization. It includes information about the customer, sales,
purchase, delivery, billing etc.
Objectives
While formulating the objective of this project the guiding principle has been the
feasibility and achievability of the project. After correcting this principle to user
requirements, following objective has been worked out:

• To evolve a system that is fully computerized.

• To provide report in required format at short notice and on demand for
management.
• To minimize manpower requirement thus achieving optimum cost
effectiveness.
• To reduce space requirement for storage and operations of the system.
• To provide file security against all types of loss.

FEASIBILITY STUDY
It is a study of the solution of the problem that how much the solution solves the
problem so as to check:
• What are the needs and how the problem can be solved
• What resources are available
• How well does it fit in the system
• Is feasibility study important
Feasibility study entails looking into details of various factors affecting the feasibility of
the system. These include:
Economic feasibility
This is commonly known as Cost/Benefit analysis. It is the procedure to determine the
benefits and savings that are expected from a candidate system and compare them with
the cost. If benefit outweighs cost, then the decision is made to design and implement the
system. Otherwise, further justifications or alterations in the proposed system will have to
be made if it is to have a chance of being approved.
Technical feasibility
It centers on the existing computer system and to what extent it can support the proposed
addition. This involves financial consideration to accommodate technical enhancement. If
the budget is a serious constraint, then the project is judged not feasible.
Behavioral feasibility
This study entails to the people who are to work on the proposed system. People are
inherently resistant to change and computers have been known to facilitate change. An
estimate should be made of how strong a reaction the user staff is likely to have towards
the development of the computer system.

About Project
Before the analysis is done, the feasibility study needs to be done so as to check whether
the system is feasible to run on the machines or not. Each and every aspect was judged
and after this study, the project team had been assigned which includes many groups each
assigned with the team leader. Each team was assigned the problem and basic flowcharts
were made.
The various schedules were assigned keeping in mind the cost and performance of the
system. The hardware requirements were taken into consideration so that the system runs
on the proper platform.
Each and every system requires that the cost being taken into consideration. Our system
too had considered this. The system is considered best which is being produced with
better efficiency with reasonable cost and we have tried to achieve this target so as to
make our system efficient in every aspect.

HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

 There is no any such type of requirement or constraint on developed system. As
we have our own developed interface for interacting with the user.
Hardware requirements:
• Pentium IV processor
• 666 MHz speed
• 128MB RAM
• External hard disk
• Printer to print reports
• Other necessary peripherals
Software used:
• For development purposes:
Windows XP professional edition (Service pack 2) or Windows 2000/98
• As a front end: Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2005
• As a backend: Microsoft SQLSERVER 2000
• Developing languages: C#
ANALYSIS
A requirement is a feature that must be included in the system. Before the actual
design and implementation starts, getting to know the system to be implemented is of
prime importance. Main emphasis should be on:
• The output of the system.
• The outputs expected from the system.
• The people involved in the working of the system.
• The volume of DATA (INPUTS) and the amount of INFORMATION
(OUTPUTS) that will be involved.
With respect to the system itself, the following facts should be taken into consideration:
• The major processes involved.
• The main points of application.
• The processing rules for the collected data.
• The exceptions that may be present.
• The checks that should be in place in order avoid wrong entries.
Basically, structured analysis is a set of techniques and graphical tools that allow the
analyst to develop a new kind of system specifications that are easily understandable to
the user. The structured tools focus on the tools which are essentially the DFD, Structured
English, and Decision Trees & Decision Tables. The objective is to build a new
document, called System Specification. This document provides the basis for design and
implementation. It must be noted that this phase focuses on the logical development of
the system and not the physical development. We must establish a man-machine interface
in this phase.
Tasks performed as an analyst
• Gathered all facts about the present system from the employees.
• Studied strengths and weaknesses of the current system.
• Determined what must be done to solve the problem.
• Prepare a functional specification document.
In order to reduce the time, there is need for computerized system that can retrieve data,
insert data, update existing data and delete existing data. This software is developed with
the aim of reducing time, manpower, cost so that the records can be maintained easily.
The volume of the work and complexity are increasing year by year. This system reduces
complexity and workload.
DESIGN

E-R DIAGRAM

The Entity Relationship diagram perceives the real world as consisting of Basic
objects called entities and relationships among these objects. The E-R diagram is one of
several semantic diagram. It is very useful in mapping the meaning and interaction of the
real world enterprises onto a conceptual schema.
The E-R data model employs three basic notions:-
• Entity Set: - It is asset of entities of the same type that share the same properties,
attributes. an entity is a “thing” or “Object” in the real world that is
distinguishable from all other objects.
• Relationship Set: - It is the set relationships of the same type. A relationship is an
association among several entities. A relationship in an ER schema represents an
association between named entities in a real world enterprise that is being
modeled.
• Attributes:-These are descriptive properties possessed by each member of an
entity set. An entity is represented by the set of attributes. The designation of an
attribute for an entity set expresses that the database stores similar information
concerning each identity in an entity set.

An ER diagram consists of the following components:-

 Invoices Update
Supplier Inventory
Added
I
N
V
O
I
C Amount
E Added
P O
A R
Y D
M E
E Generate R
N Payment S
T STOCK
S
Inventory
Levels

PAYMENT Generate
DETAIL Orders
 Minimum Order
Quantities

Generate
Bill
Detail

BILL
DETAIL

Request Receive Request Details

& File
Customer Request

Check
Stock
PAYMENT
DETAIL

DELIVERY
DETAIL
STOCK
Generat
e
Payment
 Delivery

BILL
DETAIL

Generat
e Employee
Bill

The design of the system produces the details that state how a system will meet
the requirements identified during system analysis. This is often referred to as logical
design stage. At this stage the main consideration is the construction of the system with
reference. The designers are responsible for providing the programmers a clear and well
outline software specification between and the programmer at this junction is the most
important. Lack of understanding on the part of other person could lead a major problem
later on.
Following logical design is physical design. This produces the working system by
defining the design specifications that tell programmers exactly what the candidate
system must do. In turn, the programmer writes the necessary programs or modifies the
software package that accepts input from the user, perform the necessary calculations
through the existing file or database, produces the report on a hardcopy or displays it on a
screen and maintains an updated database at all the times. Here using structured chart,
using the concept of coupling and cohesion does the detailed design of the system.
The success of the system depends largely on how accurately a problem is
defined, thoroughly investigated, and properly carried out to the choice of solution.
Analysis is a phase in which the requirement for a new system is identified. System
analysis is a detailed study of the various operations performed by a system and their
relationships within and outside of the system. One aspect of analysis is defining the
boundaries of the system and determining whether or not a candidate system should
consider other related system. During analysis, data are collected on the available files,
decision points and transactions followed by the parent system.
Design objectives
Goal of mind while designing the system is:
• To reduce the system complexity.
• To make the system better so that it can fulfill the user requirements.
• To provide the data transfer rate faster.
• To provide convenience to the sender and the receiver.
• To design the system so that the reliability is increased.
• The number of man-hours spent on physical jobs in the office should be
drastically reduced.
• To reduce the errors done while doing manual work thus making the output
consistent and correct.
• To provide reliable and good information at the designation after decompressing
near the destination.

Design decisions
The system has been developed C#.NET instructions and SQL Server Database is
used. Firstly instructions are written in C#.Net code and then run and the output is shown
as execution forms. Software is a process through which requirement are translated into
representation of software. Design is a technical kernel of software development. In
software design, there are three distinct types of activities. These are:
• External design
• Architectural design
• Detailed design
External design
It is the representation of the code and the real structure of the data. Architectural design
and detailed design are collectively referred to as internal design; detailed design is the
deep portion of the code.
The software design can be viewed from the technical point of view as:
• Preliminary design
• Detailed design
Technical issues concerned under the preliminary design, data design, architectural
design and procedural design. Technical issues concerned under the detailed design are
program coding and program specifications.
Data design
The point to consider under the data design is the input design, output design and
the logical design.
Input design
Input design is the process of converting user-originating inputs to a computer-
based format. In the system design phase, the expanded data flow diagrams identify
logical data flow, data stores, sources and destinations. A system flowchart specifies
master files, transaction files and computer programs. Input data are collected and
organized into group of similar data. Once identified, appropriate input media are
selected for processing. The input media and devices are also specified in the document.

Output design
Computer output is the most important and direct source of information to the
user. Efficient, intelligible, output design should improve the system’s relationship with
the user and help in decision making. A major form of output is a hard copy from the
printer. The output devices to consider depend on factors such as compatibility of the
device with the system, response system requirements, expected print quality and the
number of copies needed.
Logical design
The main goal of the logical design is to develop modular program structure and
represent the relationship between modules. Logical design also gives the flow of data
throughout the programs.