This project assignment provides practice applying the ERD notation to narrative problem descriptions. You have to use the ER Assistant software to complete the assignment.

Business Problem Scenario

Automata, Inc., produces specialty vehicles by contract. The company operates several departments, each of which builds a particular vehicle, such as a limousine$,$ truck, van, or RV$.$

$$ Before a new vehicle is built, the department places an order with the purchasing department to request specific components. Automata$$s purchasing department is interested in creating a database to keep track of orders and to accelerate the process of delivering materials.

$$ The order received by the purchasing department may contain several different items. An inventory is maintained so the most frequently requested items are delivered almost immediately. When an order comes in$,$ it is checked to determine whether the requested item is in inventory. If an item is not in inventory, it must be ordered from a supplier. Each item may have several suppliers.

Given that functional description of the processes encountered at Automata$$s purchasing department, determine the needed entities in this database and their attributes. To do this, you have to use your knowledge of the databases you have learned about and worked with in this class. The order entry and JCC databases, for example, can help you in this respect. As for attributes, you have to provide at least some basic ones for each entity. Again use your knowledge of previous databases to do this. After you have determined the entities and attributes, you need to specify the relationships between entities. Your knowledge of previous databases is also critical to your determining of the relationships, especially, cardinality. Finally, after the entities, attributes, and relationships have been determined, draw an ERD for the database using ER Assistant $($ERD drawn using a different software will not count$).$

Grading is based on:

$$ Entities

$$ Whether you have identified all the necessary entities. They are implied but can be inferred in the narrative.

$$ How well the names of the entities make sense

$$ Whether there is a primary key in each entity

$$ Attributes

$$ Whether you have identified some key attributes for each entity.

$$ How well the names of the attributes make sense

$$ Relationships

$$ Whether you have determined all the necessary relationships, and

$$ how well they are defined in terms of type, direction, and cardinality.

$$ How well your ERD for the database is drawn