Assignment 1: Inventory Management Systems
Systems Analysis and Development
April 18, 2014

My sister owns a small clothing store. During a conversation at a family dinner, she mentioned her frustration with having to manually track and reorder high demand items. She would like an automated system but has a very small budget. Manually tracking orders is not an effective way to do business. A good example would be if you were tracking inventory using EXCEL you could accidentally delete the file, or a virus could destroy your system. Pen and paper tracking is absolutely not efficient, and it leaves a lot of room for human error.
The purpose of inventory management is to provide uninterrupted production, sales, and/or customer service levels at the minimum cost. Since for many companies inventory is the largest item in the current assets category, inventory problems can and do contribute to losses or even business failures (What is inventory management, n.d.).
Inventory control is important for the largest companies, but it is equally important for the smallest businesses as well. For instance, my sister’s small clothing store needs to be able to track its best-selling items along with its slow moving items. It needs to keep a higher on-hand count of the best-selling items, so that customers will not be disappointed if the item that they are looking for is not in-stock. A good inventory system creates efficiency and increases profits.
My sister’s budget is very limited. So, I am going to build the most effective system that I can for the least amount of money. There are five core components to an inventory system.
• Inventory Tracking Software - The software you use will determine how you track your inventory. • Mobile Computer - Inventory tracking requires users to be on the move throughout your facility making updates and changes.
• Wireless Infrastructure