Each item is given a tag number, the first two letters indicate the country of origin - in this case Indonesia.

i/o indicates whether stock is coming in (i) or being sold (o) - possibly could also be lost, damaged, stolen or destroyed.

The last entry shows that there are 33 items in total.

When a card is full, a new one is written and the stock levels transferred.

When a new item is added to the shop a new tag number and record card are assigned. The cards are kept in tag number order to help with this process.

When items are discontinued the record card is removed from the card catalogue.

When new stock is bought in, the record card is updated.

The card also needs to be updated when items are moved from storeroom to shop.

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Sales information

When the record card is updated at the end of each day, the corresponding entry in the sales book is crossed out.

Sometimes the sales book is used to keep notes.

The manager goes through the sales book at the end of the day, totals up the money - to check against the amount in the till - and updates the record cards .

If the shop is very busy (which doesn't often happen) then the sales staff might have to write down sales on slips of paper and update the book later on.

Re-ordering of goods is currently done on a case-by-case basis when the manager notices that the record card is being frequently updated and the stock is low. She usually notes on that item on a list of low items - one list for each supplier. That way she can re-order a group of items at the same time.

When looking at existing systems we will find that there are advantages as well as disadvantages.

Good points are that staff need no special training or equipment to operate this system.

Click the example link for an example (duh).

Some will open in a separate window.

This process of analysis and design is somewhat more thorough than required for a typical student dossier but will give you an excellent understanding of the existing and proposed systems.

on this page: [ manual system description | how well does it work? | exercises ]

Introducing Fair Trade

Fair Trade is an organisation that sells products from partner organisations in Developing Countries. It attempts to give the suppliers a price that will enable them to live a decent, if poor, life rather than exploiting them as some multi-national clothing companies have notoriously done.

The Fair Trade store in Karapiro Village , New Zealand is located on the corner of Ariki and Rangitira streets opposite the Lake Haven cafe and next to Lake Karapiro with its wonderful view of Mt Mangatautari. While shopping there one day, I noticed that they were using a manual system of stock control that worked as described below.

A Manual Stock Control System

The shop consists of the main selling area and a storeroom/office in the back. When goods are received they are first housed in the storeroom and then unpacked and some are put in the shop. The stock is therefore kept in two places.

Each item for sale has a record card . I wasn't able to copy a card so I drew a sketch in my notebook:

The record card .

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The cards are updated at the end of each day from a sales book where all the sales are recorded; again I couldn't get a sample page photocopied so I had to copy one into the notebook:

The sales book

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How well does this system work?

The shop staff find it works very well and is simple to understand. The problems that occur are:

- Difficult to keep sales book up-to-date at busy times.
- Sometimes forget to update record card when taking goods from store room in a hurry.
- Handwriting of numbers can be a problem when writing in a hurry - hard to read.

The shop manager find it works reasonably well. The problems that occur are:

- Sometimes run out of stock as re-ordering process haphazard.
- If there is a query on an entry in the sales book don't know who the sales person was.
- Finds it hard to know which items are selling well and when.
- Finds it hard to track profits on a per item or per supplier basis.

The manager keeps track of suppliers on another card index file, she knows which items are supplied by each supplier but does not write this information down at present. She realises this would be a problem if she had to leave the shop for an extended period of time.

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Exercises

How many of these exercises you can complete successfully depends upon what stage you are at on your course. I would suggest that this is an appropriate task for the end of the theory part of the course.

However, questions could also be attempted after each discrete unit.

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related: [ Systems home ]

Choosing a real, existing manual system is a great way to start your dossier project.

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