PROCESS FLOW DRAWINGS FOR A DEPARTMENT STOCK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

SCENARIO

$$What$$s so hard about managing our stock of stationery?$$ asked Emily. $$I$$ll tell you what. Nothing. That$$s what.$$ She was

in opposition to any reform of the stationery management process at the office, and she was not alone. Most of the staff felt

the same way.

But Paul, the manager of the Civil & Electrical Engineering Department, felt very differently. Simply put, the current manual

paper$-$based stock procedure is not working, or at least, it is not being used properly. There is no accountability, and there

are absolutely no controls. It is a $$free for all$.$ Certain items always seem to be either low or out of stock. If a certain volume

or quantity a particular item was expected to be in stock based on the monthly stock level reports, very often the actual quantity

would be less. He didn$$t say it$,$ but Paul felt that the staff members routinely $$helped themselves$$ to whatever they wanted

from the stationery stock room for personal and home use without using the required voucher request procedure. Perhaps,

they were using the request vouchers, but they were slipping in extra items or ordering items a bit too frequently for Paul to

notice that they were over$-$ordering items to take home.

The procedure currently in place for a staff member to request stationery or supply items from the stock room involved filling

out a Department Voucher form with all of their needed items and their respective quantities. The staff member would sign

the form, then take the Voucher to Paul co$-$sign the form to authorize the release of the requested items from the stock room.

Before co$-$signing the voucher, Paul would typically check the latest stock volume report to make sure that sufficient stock was

available, but this report is produced only at the end of each month, so it is often outdated. However, checking the outdated

stock report is not how the approval decision is supposed to be made. He needs to make his approval decision based on

whether the employee$$s request is a valid work$-$related request, or if he believes that the employee is abusing the department

privilege of providing stationery and other supplies. What Paul really needs is to be able to check on how often each staff

member orders items over time, and how many items they have been requesting. But checking through hundreds of filed

voucher forms to do the math simply takes too much time, and Paul is otherwise busy doing his real job managing the

department, so he would just co$-$sign the request vouchers without doing proper checks, and go back to his duties. The staff

members would then go to the stock room with their voucher forms and present them to the stock room attendant, Janet.

Janet is the stock room attendant who is responsible for running the stock room$$s operations, keeping track of stock levels,

and producing the monthly stock volume report. As her job is clerical in nature, Janet is not an engineer. Her desk is located

at the back of the stock room. Upon entry to the room, staff members would pass several aisles of shelves with a multitude

of different items kept in stock. When she receives the voucher, she would go to the shelves to collect the requested items.

If any of the requested items happen to be out of stock, Janet would place the Voucher in her $$Pending$$ file until items were

restocked. Once the items have been restocked at a future date, Janet would complete the staff member$$s stock request and

fulfill their order. To fulfill all orders, she would retrieve the requested items and deliver them to the staff member, then stamp

the voucher form as $$Delivered$$ and file the form. Janet completed the order by updating her stock book to reflect the new

reduced stock volumes, the staff member$$s name who made the request, and any other relevant information relating to the

transaction.

At the end of the month, Janet will do a physical inventory count to compare the actual stock levels with the numbers in the

stock book, then she would produce the monthly stock volume report for Paul. Unfortunately, there was almost always a

difference between the stock book$$s numbers and the actual stock numbers, and this is what led to Paul$$s suspicion that

perhaps some employees were $$helping themselves$.$ Paul felt that Janet was either giving out too many items, that she was

stealing items for her own personal use, that she was not keeping accurate records of the stock volume, or that the other

members of staff were taking items from the shelves while Janet was otherwise distracted. Paul even thought that it was

possible that persons were ordering extras of certain items $($such as reams of copy paper$)$ so that they could take these extra

items home for personal use.

A big part of the problem was that an actual count of the stock volumes was done once per month at the end of the month, so

missing items would not be notic