Assignment title: Information


Creating a database for a company (a case study is given). The company wants to build a database to improve its stocking and ordering of raw materials. Currently their records are on an excel spreadsheet (excel file given). Furnish4Us is an Australian based company, owned by the Furnish family that has been in business for 10 years, and intends to market their newly designed furniture. Each furniture item comes as a kitset, similar to Ikea. However, what makes their furniture easy to assemble is their patented locking systems that do not require Allen keys, Hex keys, bolts, screws, or nails. Furniture frames, bases, shelves, desks are made out of a specially created material similar to wood-plastic composites but are recyclable. They are also light and come in various different colours. Furnish4Us have 5 big superstores around Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Perth, and Adelaide. Although, overall retail sales has been lower compared to three years ago, sales and profits have been steady. The management of Furnish4Us have realised that the trend of Internet sales has increased in the retail industry and would like to explore the possibility of extending its website to Internet sales rather than just disseminating information and product catalogues. Marketing data has shown that competitors similar to Furnish4Us such as Office Green and FurnishWithUs have been able to increase their sales through Internet sales. Since the DSS prototype exercise Furnish4Us has another line of desks to add to their SX and ZX lines. Their combination (combo) computer desks CX (computer desks with shelving) are not compatible with the new locking system and therefore, are assembled differently. In addition, to their desk products, Furnish4Us products also include dining tables, shelving and cabinets, sofa-beds, and chairs. Raw material is kept in different locations than that of their finished products. Raw materials consists of material bought through other suppliers as well as core components made by Furnish4US. Raw materials are sourced mostly from suppliers in Australia and New Zealand but also include a few offshore trading partners, such as China, Vietnam, and Malaysia. In order to go online, Furnish4Us would like to first build a database to improve their stocking and ordering of raw material. Currently, their records are stored on an Excel spread-sheeting system. Talking to the owners and managers you have been given the following data/information requirements for their proposed database. Database Requirements:  To track raw materials and assembled/manufactured products.  To list raw materials that need replenishment.  To generate output such as purchase orders (refer to Purchase Order PDF file), product catalogues, suppliers and their products, and a list of products and their assembled components, and sales reports.  To keep track of authorisation of purchase orders.  To break down the products into broad categories.  To find out which orders have not yet been met or isolate potential problems with delivery or orders. They have had in the past problems with missing order details and delayed deliveries. The managers want to at least identify these types of problems from the database.ISYS2391 SEM2 2014 Assignment 2 Page 2 of 5 Additional Information Given: 1. You are given an Excel file "Furnish4Us Sheets 2 Sem 2014.xlsx". 2. You are given a MS-Access file "Furnish4Us Prototype 2 Sem 2014.accdb". 3. You are given a sample purchase order from Furnish4Us "PO 2014.pdf". Assignment 2 – PART A Entity Relational Diagram -ERD (10%) Group Work Task 1 (5%): 1. Take note of the requirements for the database above. This should help you work out the data required for the database and thus, entities and attributes required to build a prototype database. 2. Use the files given to you to work out the entities (tables), attributes (columns), and relationships that will satisfy Furnish4Us's database requirements. 3. Draw an ERD. You must use a drawing tool such as MS-Visio. Do not do this in MS-Access. 4. Your diagram will only entities that you will use for the database and must show the cardinality (1:1, 1:M, M:N) of the relationships between entities. 5. Your diagram needs to show consistency in ERD notation. Task 2 (5%): 6. From your ERD, which only highlights entities and may show any type of cardinality, draw up a relational diagram that will be used for your final database model. Again, do not use MSAccess but use a drawing tool. 7. Your diagram should include all attributes for each entity and should only show 1:M relationships. You may have merge 1:1 relationships and break down M:N relationships into two 1:M relationships. 8. Make sure all your primary keys and your foreign keys are also shown for each entity. Make sure the entities are connected correctly, joining primary keys to foreign keys. 9. Your diagram also needs to show consistency in diagram notation. r the assignment. I accidentally uploaded the MS-Access assignment file twice ("Furnish4Us Prototype 2 Sem 2014"). Is there any more information that you would require? PO 2014.pdf I just realised that I have only uploaded one document. I'm attaching the rest shortly. *Note the file I have sent is an example of a purchase order given to us by the lecturer.