Class Exercise $(1)$

Inventory Management System for $"$i$-$Mart"

Background:

i$-$Mart is a small electronics shop which deals with the sales of electronics gadgets and accessories

among other products. This par cular store has recently started a new ini a ve of changing the

manner in which it manages its inventory. The system will assist the store to have a central

database of the products to sell, track stock as well as manage the product informa on$.$

The store manager, Alex, wants a system that can handle the following:

$1.$ Product Tracking:

The system should be able to contain the following informa on for every product in the

inventory; the name of the product, SKU, price, quan ty in stock and the category of the product

say mobile phones, laptops, accessories etc.

$2.$ Inventory Updates:

Whenever there is a sale or when new products are received into the store, then the stock of

the product should be updated. This assists in the management of inventory since there is no

room for contradic ons as far as the stock is concerned.

$3.$ Product Details:

Every product in the inventory has to have some informa on that will be linked with it$.$ This is

not only the simple informa on like the name and the price, but also other characteris cs like

the brand, a short descrip on and any other a ributes $($for example, color, size, compa bility$).$

$4.$ Category Management:

Products are classified in to different categories. The system should also be able to cater for these

categories in order to enable products to be sorted and filtered easily. This is because it becomes

easy for the store staff to locate and arrange the items in to the various categories that they

belong to$.$

$5.$ Supplier Informa on:

The store has several suppliers for each of the products that it offers in the market. The system

should also be able to store informa on such as the products that a given supplier gives and the

suppliers$$ contact informa on$.$ It is very helpful when it comes to arranging products especially

when they are out of stock.

$6.$ Sales Tracking:

For every sale the system should be able to capture the following details of the transac on the

date of the sale, the products sold, the quan es and the amounts. This assists in keeping records

of the sales made and also the analysis of the sales made over the me interval.

Tasks for Analysis:

Based on the descrip on of the inventory management system above, analyze the following:

$$ Iden fy the main objects in the system for instance: Product.

$$ Determine the proper es of each object. For instance, if the en ty type is $$Product$$

then the a ributes could include: productID, productName, price, quan tyInStock

category, brand, descrip on and features.

$$ Consider how these objects might interact with each otherFor example, a $$Sale$$ object

could have some rela onship with one or more $$Product$$ objects and a $$Product$$

object would be in a rela onship with a $$Category$$ object.

Expected Deliverables:

$$ An inventory of objects with their proper es $.$