Sports Centre

Analysis: Background of the Business and Problem Definition:

The Sports Centre All sport is owned by Mr. Fernando. He opened his business on the 20th June 2005. This centre is particularly situated at La Rue Chateauneuf in Curepipe, Mauritius. The business is to sell sport equipments such as shoes, sports materials etc

Mr. Fernandos started as a small one and imported small amounts of sports materials and had only 4 workers working with him. At that time, he had no difficulty in managing the work as their few workers and their sales were easier as there were only a small amount of sports materials being sold.

The customers were satisfied with what Mr. Fernando was selling to them. But as years were passing by, his business has expanded and imported more new products. All the customers want all the latest types of sports materials. Due to this expansion, more workers were employed as more customers are visiting the centre.

With the expansion of the work, Mr. Fernandos work has increased and has become more difficult for him to manage the work properly. Some of the works are:

Inserting new records for sport equipment

Modifying details of all equipments such as price

Managing records of how many articles are being sold, left in the stock or finished

and need to be reordered.

Monthly report on sales of sports equipments

Monthly report on purchases of shoes

Updating supplier details

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 Purchase of new models of sport equipment

Mr. Fernando contacted me for computerizing of new systems.

Description of possible solutions and evaluation

One possible solution can be is to employ new more experienced employees to

do such types of job such as to keep record on paper on workers.

Advantage:

The new workers, the work will become more easy and efficient and the risks of errors will be reduced.

Disadvantage:
With the arrival of the new workers, the owner will make lost wages cost for all the workers will increase.

Another possible solution could be about self-service.

Advantages:

The customers can have large variety of choice and can choose their sports equipment they want.

The works become quicker as the other employees can do other more important work.

Disadvantage:
There may be problems of thefts or damaging of the goods.

Current Flow of the System

Custom er

Sports Centre Choose Sport

Sport equipments file

Check whether equipment available

Equipm

ent available

Sell the equipment to customer

Fact Finding Techniques

I have decided the following techniques to be able to get more information about the shop and also the owners requirement:
1. Interview or Questionnaire

2. Observation 3. Analyzing documents 4. Summary of the Interview after the analysis

Interview Questions
Interview questions: What are the tasks carried out in your shop? How is information about the workers and goods kept? Where they are stored? Have it ever occurred that a personal file of a worker has lost? Do you find it tiresome to search for their files every time? How do you keep the track about the salaries of workers? Are these tasks an easy one for you? What kind of other difficulties have you before or is currently facing? 7

 Do you believe that computerizing the current system will be helpful? Do you believe that this system will be beneficial in the future?

Interview
Question: How are the tasks carried out in your shop? Answer: Well, there are several types of tasks carried out here everyday but the most important are: Keeping the personal record of all the employees Keeping records about goods imported and sold
Keeping the records of the employees salaries

Question: How is information about workers and goods kept? Answer: Since we have started our business, we have been recording all the details on paper. All the information about workers, goods imported and sold was recorded on paper.

Answer: All the information on papers is currently stored in shelves which are completely filled and there is no space to keep more papers.

Question: Where are they stored? Question: Have it ever occurred that a personal file of a worker has lost? Answer: Oh yes! Thats the problem of storing data on paper. There are on several occasions that workers files are lost, sometimes torn or damaged. We try our best to place the papers in their places but sometimes it happens that someone forgets.

Question: Do you find it tiresome to search for their files every time? Answer: Yes, but this forms part of our business and we have to do it. It doesnt matter if the papers are placed in their correct positions but if they are misplaced, it takes a lot of time to search for them and becomes very tiresome.

Question: How do you keep the track about the salaries of workers?

Answer: Well, almost all the workers have different salaries depending on the types of jobs they do. The information about salaries is also kept in their personal files and each month they are paid accordingly.

Question: Are these tasks an easy one for you? Answer: No! Despite the help of 3 of workers working with me, I find this work very difficult. Concerning about the salaries I have to do the task myself alone and it is very difficult and tiresome for me.

Question: What kinds of difficulties have you before or currently facing? Answer: As all the records are manually written, they are damaged by time or sometimes lost, so we have to create the record again and it causes great difficulties to gather all the details about the workers again. Another difficulty Is because of the increasing amount of paper; no space is left to keep more papers!

Question: Do you believe that computerizing the current system will be helpful to you?
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Answer: Of Course!!

Question: Can you please tell me how the new system will help you in the future? Answer: The new system will help me to reduce my workload. Instead of doing the manual works such as storing data about purchase and sales on paper, it could be stored as a database file on the computer.

Question: Will the workers be able to use the new computers? Answer: Of course! If not the case, new more experienced people will be employed.

The objectives of the owner are divided into two parts: 1. Business term
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2. Computer term

In business terms the owner wants to:

1. Reduce the use paper

2. More accurate works as humans can make errors 3. Searching for records every time manually but instead of that using a computerized database to be more easy to store and search for information. Using this method loss and damage of records will be prevented. 4. Errors concerning data entry will be minimized. The new system will make use of validation and verification checks. These two systems will help to minimize errors while entering data on the stock control. 5. Information about the sport equipment and customers should be input rapidly 6. Store data about the equipment purchased, sold or remained in stock in a database. It is an easier to search for the data.

In Computer terms the owner wants to:

1. Introduce the latest type of technology such as a cash terminal to fasten the work. 2. Introduce a new way of communication such as the internet (e-mail) or fax.

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3. Adding entries of new sport equipment bought. New sport equipments bought can be stored in a database and as new more equipments bought, the records can be updated more rapidly. 4. Adding, modifying and amending data will be easier to do.

Collecting all these data together, I have concluded the Mr. Fernandos workload has increased and this is a real challenge for him. So I have decided to propose him some ideas about computerizing his shop and strongly hoped that this will be an effective solution in the future.

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