Background to the organisation

I have been asked by Mrs Granger to help her solve a problem; the company is called ‘Paul Granger Premier Building’. The business is run from an office in Brixworth, which is a small village just on the outskirts of Northampton. The business has been going since 1989 and has now got a very good reputation within Brixworth and all over the County. The business consists of 2 main people, Paul Granger whose business it is and Glenn walker who is someone who works for Paul and helps him out on all of the jobs. All of the paper work is done by Paul’s wife Jocelyn. It is a well organised company, as Paul and Glenn do all the building jobs whilst Jocelyn does all the paper work back at the office.

Brief description of the organisation's current methods

The company at this moment in time manage all their information in an address book and also in a filing cabinet. The customer’s names and numbers are currently written down by hand in to an address book which is looking very tatty. The client’s information in it is not in alphabetical order, it is just written in one after another in an order of when they rang up enquiring about work. The work that the company is doing for a client or has been asked for a quote for from the client is all stored in a filing cupboard in the office.

Problem with the current method that is being used

  • Time:The problems that the client have is that it takes along time to search for a clients name and address, there files in the filing cabinet. So they need a database which will speed up the process so they aren’t wasting time trying to search for the client’s files and numbers.
  • Documents lost easily:filing the client’s documents in this way, could mean that the files can get lost very easily. The user has told me that they have miss placed the some of their client’s documents before and then they have been accidentally thrown away. So the database will eliminate losing client’s documents because it is stored on the computer and also on a back up disk.
  • Searching for information:When the user is searching for a client’s documents it takes along time for them to find them because they need to go through the whole filing cabinet to search for them and also need to go through the whole address book.

Origins of data

The data that is stored is hand written on pieces of paper, in a book and typed up using the computer. The information that is stored is names, addresses, phone numbers, prices, invoices, materials and dates e.g. when the payment is due.

Data / Origin / Form
Name / Phone call / Address book
Address / Phone call / Address book
Phone number / Phone call / Address book
Prices / Phone call/Calculating / Written/ typed up in to an invoice on a Word processor
Materials / Phone call/Brochures / Written/ typed up in to an invoice on a Word processor
Dates / Calendar / Written/ typed up in to an invoice on a Word processor

Data Flow Diagram of Current Methods (incoming Information)