.Artifice working with ACME Distribution

General Overview: ACME called us in because of the unsatisfactory work the business was providing. Customers and Employees were both unhappy about the current state of their system. Grew from 2 employees and 1 barn (1990) to 120 employees and 3 warehouses (2005) providing 2000 products from 5 companies.

Current System Overview: The system currently in place does not provide accurate information Annually money is lost from both cancelled orders and products on back- order Customers are not notified if a product is even out of stock Nothing is paperless and information is unsafe.

Current System Overview Cont’d They receive a pick-ticket. Pick-ticket is assigned to an employee. The product has to be located and placed in a cart. The pick-ticket is placed on the cart for shipping. The contents are then packed with a manifest and label. They are then moved to a staging bin to be picked up by the shipping carrier. The pick-ticket is then marked as shipped and set to the office.

Current System Overview Cont’d It takes two days for a customer to determine the status of an order. Statics show that ACME loses $35,000 annually because of this. It takes 2-3 days to cancel an order, and in most cases the order has already been shipped. Statistic show $20,000 is lost because of this.

Current System Overview Cont’d Reducing floor space with computers is estimated to save $12,000 annually. Information to the manages is slow and many times out of date.

Problems The current state of processing order forms and getting notice to the customer is out of date and inefficient. Customers do not know what is in and out of stock and often times have problems with getting the product in their hand

Problems Cont’d To much paper! If we reduced floor space and put made up a database for the customer’s information it would reduce time, cost, and money. No ability to cancel orders because there is no feedback about the product being shipped.

Problems Cont’d ACME is losing large amounts of money because poor communication between employees, managers, and customers. Too many delays. Between shipping, canceling, and ordering products money is being lost in huge amounts.

Opportunities From 1990 to 2005 they grew from 2 employees to 120 and from 1 barn to 3 warehouses. With a new system that is always ready to expand on… What is to come in another 15 years? With room for growth the system should never fall out or date again with the proper care from ACME.

Opportunities Cont’d With a new paperless system employees will not be confused on helping with an order. Customers will have an easy to use interface with only on time to register. Customer information will be stored on our end incase they ever want to return.

Opportunities Cont’d With customers given notice about what is going on with their product, they will not hesitate to think of ACME again in the future. With a reliable system it should reduce on unnecessary money spent towards canceling and back-orders.

Constraints We are going to try and keep the budget under $50,000. They want this system ASAP. ACME wants a system that will be able to grow and expand with the business. Therefore we need to make a system that can easily be updated and able to grow for the future.

Design The following is our Context Diagram and 0 Diagram. Any questions about data flow or the entities can be found in the data dictionary at the end of the paper.

Shipping BillingCustomer Warehouse 0 Order Process 8. Order Shipped 5. Billing Order 9. Product 6. Bill Receipt 1. Place Order 7. Bill 3. Confirmation 2. Order4. Shipping Order

2 Create Invoice 1 Fill Order 3 Apply Payment Shipping Billing Customers Warehouse Inventory 1. Order Placed 16. Send Product 14. Get Ready to Send 2. Check Status 3/12 Check/Get Product 4.Complete Order 5. Completed Invoice 6. Order Confirmation 9. Bill to Customer 7. Order Sent 8. Bill Sent 10. Order Ready to Prepare 11. Ready Product 13. Readied Product 15. Ready to Ship

Recommendations Computer making everything automatic Scanning system to keep track of information coming in and out. Database of customer information and account history. No cancelation through ACME. If a customer has an issue with a product they can send it back for an exchange.