A STUDY OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM AT AGORA SUPERSTORE Group Assignment

Prepared For
Ms. FARHANA ISLAM(FHM) Course Instructor MIS 205

Prepared By:
Fahad Fahim MD. Delowar Hossain Tosifa Shamshi Atique Faisal 081-109-030 073-648-530 083-663-030 081-108-030

MIS-205, Section-8 Group- 5 Submission Date- August 17,2009

LETTER OF TRANSMITAL:
This report is prepared as the course requirement of Computer Information System (MIS205).Preparing this report our focuses were on the point of Sales and Inventory information system that relates our theoretical knowledge with real life situation. This report is on Agora which is a part of Rahimafrooz. We are mainly monitoring the Sales and inventories by using software and Hardware; what they are used for completing their work and then put together our findings in this report.

 Mission Statement:
The mission statement of this report is to analyze the following things. . To identify the system of Agora mainly Sales and Inventory System, transactions Entries System, Working Procedure How the Computer is used in various sector of the Agora To relate our theoretical knowledge with the practical observation

Over view of Agora in term of IS:

Have you ever watched an incredible scene in a movie or seen in a drawing that looked so realistic though it was a photograph? Afterward, were you amazed to learn that it was done on a computer? There is no doubt the fact that computing technology has designed a perpetual variation in the whole world. We are endlessly surprised by the feats accomplished with the help of computers, and we marvel at their complexity. Though many people think that computer is difficult to understand and difficult to use, Computers are basically simple devices and all computers have a great deal in common. Most computers, from the biggest to the smallest, operate on the same fundamental principles. They are all fabricated from the same basic types of components, and they all need instruction to make them run. Information that was at one time emporium in storehouse safeguarding management can now be entranced without delay at the small noise of mouse identification. Globalization has put increased pressure on business organization. Companies have to deliver more by fundamentally rethinking their existing processes. Now a day only information technology can help organization in this purpose. The implementation of electronic commerce can facilitate internal interactions, improve customer relations and eliminate the constraints of place and time.

Agora, the organization, which we are taken as our subject matter, is established in 2000. Rahimafrooz Superstores Ltd. (RSL) made a breakthrough in the urban lifestyles by launching the first retail chain in the country, Agora. Currently there are four Agora outlets at Gulshan, Dhanmondi, Moghbazar and Mirpur in Dhaka. With many more coming up at important locations in Dhaka and other major cities, Agora is endeavoring to fulfill the everyday shopping needs of the urbanites through fair price, right assortment, and best quality. It is venture of RAHIMAFROOZ. This is the first fully computerized Chain Super Market in our country. Agora established two Branches in the middle of the Dhaka City. In our report, we are highlighted the computer system on Agora which include oracle database system, hardware, Local Area Network (LAN), and other Networking System used by them.

SYSTEM OF AGORA IN TERM OF IS:

Networking is making the whole world smaller and smaller day by day. Networking has caused to bring the horizons of this earth very close. Now it is no more any problematic task to communicate and exchange ideas with some one living in any other pole. These days business institutions are using various network systems to increase work speed and to develop quality of work.

Local Area Network:

Local Area Network (LAN) is one of the handiest used networks that connect a collection of personal computers. Thus it helps to share hardware, software and data within an office or building. Agora integrates their office and store activities under Local Area Network (LAN). Thats why it is easy to communicate for any client computer with server computer.

 Database Management System:

Oracle:
The most important part for any organization is to organize and manage data and fed them into the memory. There are different types of software available in the market to create a database system such as Oracle, Microsoft Access and Database Power Builders etc. Among these Oracle is the most famous and broadly used software. To get the benefit from computer system or networking, Oracle Database Processing has to divide into both server and client. Here the computer of database management does the supervision of data, that means do all the work of server. After data processing how the result is disclose should assess by the computer user. In a server of an Oracle, many users can concurrently work in a database. Instantly, Oracle makes the database size smaller and everything becomes easier. In case of data processing Oracle server process data very fluently that remove the low process of data processing. Oracle makes any part of database easier and reasonable. If the database administrator assess any part from database and impose restriction on its use, then other application of database are not hampered. In some cases, Oracle Web server is available in 24 hours. The general work of the system likes as database back up or any defective part of computer has no effect on Oracle Database. A Computer Networking System, which is gathered by many computers make logical database that can use any user. Besides this, an Oracle can collect data from another database. This is another reason for huge popularity of Oracle. Oracle can be transferred through different types of operating system. In the case of Computer Networking, Oracle can share data through many computer and help to assess. Agora uses Oracle in selling process; inventory system etc like other developed shopping mall of the world. Oracle is very helpful for its important features. Thats why they can complete all the work skillfully. Their programmers divide the Oracle Database System into four Parts.

Point of Sale System

General Ledger

Oracle
Purchase Software

Back Office System

The store for sale. The store managers do it at the end of the day. By using Purchase software, Agora requests the supplier to supply the necessary amount of goods by providing all information about the goods on the basis of customer demand. IT department opens General Ledger file which shows the selling condition of the day and use it for inventory adjustment and keep Point of Sale system and Back Office system are used in the store and purchase. And General Ledger (GL) is followed by IT Department of head-office.

Point of Sale System is used for only the entry of selling product. By using this system, the salesman entries each and selling items just at the time of sale. Back Office System are used for data processing that means all day to day transactions or selling inventory or stored product, that keep in weekly or monthly balance.

 Selling Procedure of Agora:

The selling procedure of Agora is operated by the Oracle Database System. The type and quantity of each product is first ascertained by the IT department and then the information is transformed to the store manager. After that the IT department sends the order to the head-office. When the head-office sanctions the order, IT department forwards an outlay of the suppliers to the respective personnel. Customer reaction to every goods is very meticulously examined and in each three months a report is prepared stating the customer satisfaction. Later on, the classify order span like seven days, fourteen days and up to one month for the supplier to supply respective product. Last of all the suppliers are expected to supply goods and row materials accordingly. As soon as the suppliers supply required product, store received the physical inventory and IT Department records system stock in the purchase software of Oracle Database System. IT department is informed by the storekeeper that physical stock and system stock of goods supplied by the suppliers are same, so they receive the products. IT department gives entry the receiving of goods in Goods Receive Note (GRN). GRN is an option in their database that is used to record newly received product by the store. If there is spoiled product, the manager of store returns it immediately. But if the product has been spoiled after reception, that cannot be returned and should be recorded in their Wastage Note. A limited amounts that they considered as ignorable errors, which is caused by stolen incident and wastage. In the store salesman sell product and entries the sale in the point of sale system. By using this system, salesman only entries name of product, price, and vat and so on for the whole day. Different salesman works in different shifts in a day. A salesman starts his work by using Sign In option and when he/she closes his/her work, he/she should use Sign off option at point of sale system. By this, they have the record of the Salesmens working hours and at the individuals working hour, they are responsible for any mismanagement.

There are some servers in back store. The cashier can access the server and collect information by linking to it. Different cashier works in different times. So the server helps them to keep the consistency. Here they use Back Office System for various cash adjustment process. After closing the selling procedure at night by Day End option, adjusted documents are prepared and transferred to the IT department through email. Sometimes IT department takes the document by dial-up. After receiving the document IT department opens a General Ledger file. Here they records each and every days selling condition. General Ledger contains sales and purchase conditions. IT department takes all kind of decision on the basis of GL. Now IT department adjust system stock with received information from the store. If salesman forget to entry any sales of product but that has been given to the customers or there is an error in counting product or stolen of product, then there will be a variation between the system stock and sale. For this reason, gross profit can be negative. To avoid this mistake, IT department has a process. According to this process, they keep account of sale of every month from this inventory. After every month they make the sell balance Zero and follow this procedure every month. After adding all these sell amount, they can get the variance from the total inventory. They do this system to avoid any difference, errors or any stolen incident. The inventory of a month is 10000.

1st Week

2nd Week

3rd Week

4th Week

2000

3000

2000

3000

0000 0000 0000 0000 ==== ==== ==== ==== In the given example, there is no variation or difference among the inventory. But if there is any variation, suppose 1st Week 2nd Week 3rd Week 4th Week

2000 0000 ====

3000 0000 ====

2700 0000 ====

1800 0000 ====

Here the variation is 500. So by using this process, they can get the variance and compare the amount with database and solve the problem. If there is any promotion of the product, the IT department increases the product price very easily with an option of system. This instruction is quickly informed in the office and effectively used in the store. After finishing all adjustment and correction, IT department transferred GL file to the finance department. Finance Department adjusts the inventory balances. If any mistake is found there, the opportunity goes to IT department to find the fault through re-checking the whole database and make correction and again give it to the Finance department. On the basis of this file, Finance department makes many decisions to increase profit as well as customers faith and reliance.

 Hardware
As Oracle Database System develops the activity of the super market, it cannot be also occurred without Hardware. This market gets the comprehensive form by using developed technology and powerful Hardware that gives their service speed and makes it accurate. In the store, some trained, skilled and efficient salesman provides the customers quick service and the payment is done easily by the cashier using some electronic devices such as Cash Drawer, Display Pole, Scanner, Close Circuit Television, Printer, and Keyboard.

Some significant hardware:

We are acquainted with the input device Scanner that is also called image scanner. It converts any printed image into electronic form by shining light onto the image and sensing the intensity of the lights reflection at every point. Scanner works through the optical character recognition (OCR) software to translate the image into text. When a scanner first creates an image from a page, the image is stored in the computers memory as a bitmap. A bitmap is a grid of dots, each dot represented by one or more bits. The job of OCR software is to translate that array interpret as letters and numbers. To translate bitmap into text, the OCR software looks at each character and tries to match the character with its own assumption about how the letters should look. Because it is difficult to make a computer recognize an unlimited number of typefaces and fonts.

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Scanners are widely prevalent in Super Markets. The developing technology is given varieties in the size of scanners, handheld models to flatbed scanners that sit on a desktop.

Handheld Scanner is more portable but typically require multiple passes over a single page because they are not as wide as letter size paper.

Flatbed scanner offers higher quality reproduction than do handheld scanners and can scan a page in a single pass. For using a flatbed scanner, we have to place the printed image on a piece of glass similar to the way a page is placed on a photocopier.

Display Pole is the electronic device that shows the total amount of all the entry that has to pay by the customer. Even it shows what the cashier is scanned by scanner. It is also showed the due amount.

As the cashier terminate one transaction by adding all the entries, he/she gives an option to the computer and the Cash Drawer is opened afterwards.

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a Printer, the mostly used output device throughout the world. It is being used in this organization for printing the transactions entries. As soon as the cashier does his/her entries, and give the computer printing command, the printer printed the document of the customers product for which they have to pay for. Agora uses dot matrix printer.

Monitor is the most popular and widely used output device. What the cashier scans can be seen here.

For the security of the whole super market, Agora is used Close Circuit Television (CCTV).

This system is made by combination of few cameras. By wire, these cameras are connected with TV of a back office room of store. Using this device, the management observes the movement of the customers, which help them to prevent an unexpected loss of the Shop.

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 The method of Using Hardware (for sales and inventories)

When a customer gathers the entire product what they want into the basket and bring that in the cashiers desk, the cashier firstly made each of the products entry by scanning the price tag. As the cashier scans the price, the products name, price is automatically written in the monitor. As soon as the cashier adds the entire product price and gives an option, the cash drawer is opened automatically. The display pole also has shown the total figure of the transaction of that particular customer. The cashier also gives the customer a printed document of what the customer purchase instantly.

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 SALES AND INVENTORY PROCESS:

Object diagram of sales and inventory: Sales and inventory Agora RahimafroozBatteries RahimafroozUPS RahimafroozIPS

Agora Groceries Cosmetics Toiletries Home appliances Foods Greetings cards Sales ( ) Payment Receive ( ) After sale service ( ) Feedback ( )

RahimafroozBatteries Batteries Sales ( ) Payment Receive ( ) Feedback ( ) After sale service ( )

RahimafroozIPS IPS Sales ( ) Payment Receive ( ) Feedback ( ) After sale service ( )

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 COMMUNICATION WITH CUSTOMER

Figure: 4.2 shows the activities involved as a customer when the visits Agora

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Start

Customer enters into the Shop

Looks for the Desired Product in Agora Gets the desired Product

Satisfied with the Product

Made the Purchase

Pay the Bill

Exit

End

Activity Diagram of sales and inventory

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 Activity diagram of Agoras sales and inventory:

First of all any customer enters Agora, then walks around for the product to be obtained, then he/she chooses a certain product, then makes decision whether to buy or not to buy the product. If the decision is yes, then they purchase the product and after that exits the shop. If their decision is NO, Then they exits the shop right away without purchasing the product.

Use Case Model

A use-case diagram is a graph of actors, a set of use cases enclosed by a system boundary, communication (participation) associations between actors and the use cases and generalizations among the use cases. Figure: 4.7 Shows the name of the actors that are involved in Agoras sales and inventory. FIGURE: 4.5 Actors are involved in this sales and inventory process.
0 0 0 0

AGORA

Supplier

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4.6 Description of the actors and use-cases Actor Name: Agora Description: Agora will act as the key to all sales and inventory system. It will interact with the suppliers as per the demand of customers for certain products. Actor Name: Supplier Description: Supplier is the inseparable part of Agora. They supply goods to Agora as per the requirement. Use-case name: Check current state of inventory. Description: Agora checks its current inventory. Use-case Name: Placing orders to suppliers Description: If Agora feels that it would run out of certain goods in a short span then they place order for that product to the suppliers Use-case name: Suppliers deliver goods. Description: Suppliers deliver required goods to agora. Use-case name: Goods receive note Description: After receiving goods from the suppliers, they issue GRN

USE CASE DIAGRAM OF SALES AND INVENTORY:

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Figure: 4.7 diagrams use cases for Agoras sales and inventory system. In this usecase diagram, it is showing the relationship among the actors and use-cases within the sales and inventory system. Here AGORA first checks the state of its own inventory. If they feels that they will run out of certain goods in a short span. Specially for those goods that have a pretty high demand in public. They place an order for that certain goods to supplier. After that, supplier delivers the goods. After receiving goods from the suppliers AGORA issue GRN (Goods Received Note)

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 E-Commerce and Agora(Rahimafrooz)

The World Wide Web has become a global vehicle for Electronic Commerce (ecommerce), creating new ways for businesses to interact with one another and their customers. We can simply define E-commerce as doing business online. There are thousands of Web sites devoted to e-commerce at the consumer level. Agora also has an e-commerce site to help customers. Using this site is like browsing through an online catalog. In this Web site, the catalog also provide us list of products along with sizes, color and styles. They provided an electronic Shopping Basket or Shopping Cart where you can temporarily store information about items we want to buy. We can select an item, store it in the basket and continue shopping, as we are ready to purchase. It is as simple as our shopping.

When we are ready to purchase, we can pay for it in several ways. One-Time Credit Card Purchase Set Up an Online Account Use Electronic Cash

Benefits of Using (Expert system)

By using Oracle, a shopping mall can be a model. Oracle Database Management System makes their job dynamic and accurate. They can develop their working process by programming Oracle Database Management System, as they needed. Although they have their office and store in different places by highly developed oracle, modern hardware and local area network, they give their service very fast and easily to the customer. For every department and branches, Agora uses computer. The whole market is computerized. They do not do manual work. Computer does all work frequently and efficiently thats differentiated Agora from other store. They are successful because computerized work minimizes their cost, time and of course the mistakes that can be occurred if the entries are done manually. Because above all we are human being. We can do the wrong, but 20

computer does not. Computer is efficient and reliable. In a shopping store, there are thousands of transactions. One Computer System makes it very fast accurate. Computer System makes also employment opportunity. Many workers are getting job only for computer. Computer also makes them very competent worker of modern world.

Agora database: Name of the tables that has been used in this project: Organization Employee Customer Suppliers Inventory Payment Orders NAME OF THE ATTRIBUTES: Organization DepartmentName DepartmentContact Employee EmployeeID EmployeeLName EmployeeFName EmployeeContact EmployeeAddress EmployeeCountry DepartmentName

Primary key

Primary key

Foreign key

Customer CustomerID CustomerLName CustomerFName CustomerContact CustomerAddress CustomerCountry EmployeeID

Primary key

Foreign key

Suppliers

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SupplierID SupplierName SupplierContact SupplierAddress ProductID Inventory ProductID ProductName ProductPrice ProductSerialNumber Payment PaymentID PaymentMethod PaymentTotal PaymentAmount PaymentDue CustomerID Orders OrderID ProductName ProductID CustomerID

Primary key

Foreign key

Primary key

Primary key

Foreign key

Primary key Foreign key Foreign key

SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
AGORA is a better super shop with modern and better technology. For higher success and to compete with present market they need some change like Upgrading software Replacing the hardware with better and fast modern hardware like security system Better management of employees More attractive web design

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 Implication of agora information system at North South University:

Cafeteria: NSU can implement the sales and inventory system for better selling Security system: CCTV camera Web designing

Conclusion
In a globalization world computer has many scopes to use. Now a day only for the information system can help organization. But lack of awareness of computer knowledge is the greatest obstacle for qualified people who are skilled in another sector. Without computer competency these qualified persons who can be the staff of like this organization is bound to loss competitiveness in international trade. And it will be very different to improve efficient selling procedure without employing computer system. From this perspective, Agora successfully and very efficiently does all their operations to apply computer and show a successful computerized model to this type of organization for conducting business. The success of Agora depends not only the reasonable price or variety of products but also the combination of hardware software.

REFERENCE:
www.agorabd.com www.google.com

Bibliography:
1. Management Information System by Laudon & Laudon. 2. Management Information System by James OBrian. 23

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