MBUS107 - Data Analyses and Databases Assignment

Assignment Task

The project Stage

Budget Auto Parts (BAP) is a company wholesaling and distributing Japanese car parts and accessories. The company has 90 employees and an annual turnover of about 60 million dollars. BAP has 12 stores in five cities of Australia. Most of its stock are for cars that have been produced in last ten years. The parts for older cars are supplied on customer orders BAP operates its business in a highly competitive market. There are five larger companies and many smaller businesses competing with BAP. New technologies such as electric and fuel hybridisation, computer visioning and autonomous emergency braking are upgrading cars rapidly, speeding up obsolescence of some BAP’s stock and making its prices volatile. The company is using MYOB for accounting and financial reporting and Smart Store, an in-house system, to administrate business operations. The two standalone systems had satisfied the company’s information needs for a period of time; recently, however, they are causing problems in many areas, exposing that they are unfit for competitions. For example, stock values in Smart Store and in MYOB are updated at times that are not synchronised. The discrepancies lead to incidences such as a sale is made with no profit, a price is quoted higher than BAP’s competitors and a credit note is created wrongly in processing a warranty claim.

Ellen, BAP’s CEO, has recently approached you, the business administration manager. She is interested in using an integrated system to address the current and potential issues associated with standalone systems, and improve the company’s business operations overall. She mentions two ERP systems, SAP and Oracle, and is seeking your advice about their suitability if one was applied to BAP. As expected by Ellen, your advice will be addressing strategic, analytical and implementation issues in a format of business essay for a presentation to the Board of Directors. More specifically, your essay should be in about words answering questions in the following five dimensions:

1. What are the key issues that a car parts wholesale company has to address in order to compete in the Australian market? How can an ERP system help address these issues?

2. Which system, SAP or Oracle, would you recommend BAP to use? Why?

3. What are the risks associated with implementation of the system? How can the risks be controlled?

4. What modern ICTs, such as AI, Cloud computing, can be used to enhance the ERP system so that BAP will continue to run the business successfully?

5. How can the sensitive data stored in the ERP system, such as the company’s financials, customers list and business operation secrets, be protected from unauthorized access both inside and outside the company? What are the salient issues in ethics and legal compliance that are associated with applying modern ICTs to the ERP system? How can these issues be addressed?

Stage

This part continues the system development process to the stage of design. It is a technical part for you to demonstrate how a relational database system is constructed conceptually. The expectation is that you will analyse, build and document a module (sub-system) of a hypothetical database system, based on the scenario given below:

A friend of yours has opened Professional Electronics and Repairs (PEAR) to repair smartphones, laptops, tablets, and MP3 players. She wants you to create a database to help her run her business.

When a customer brings a device to PEAR for repair, data must be recorded about the customer, the device, and the repair. The customer’s name, address, and a contact phone number must be recorded (if the customer has used the shop before, the information already in the system for the customer is verified as being current). For the device to be repaired, the type of device, model, and serial number are recorded (or verified if the device is already in the system). Only customers who have brought devices into PEAR for repair will be included in this system.

Since a customer might sell an older device to someone else who then brings the device to PEAR for repair, it is possible for a device to be brought in for repair by more than one customer. However, each repair is associated with only one customer. When a customer brings in a device to be fixed, it is referred to as a repair request, or just “repair,” for short. Each repair request is given a reference number, which is recorded in the system along with the date of the request, and a description of the problem(s) that the customer wants fixed. It is possible for a device to be brought to the shop for repair many different times, and only devices that are brought in for repair are recorded in the system. Each repair request is for the repair of one and only one device. If a customer needs multiple devices fixed, then each device will require its own repair request.

There are a limited number of repair services that PEAR can perform. For each repair service, there is a service ID number, description, and charge. “Charge” is how much the customer is charged for the shop to perform the service, including any parts used. The actual repair of a device is the performance of the services necessary to address the problems described by the customer. Completing a repair request may require the performance of many services. Each service can be performed many different times during the repair of different devices, but each service will be performed only once during a given repair request.

All repairs eventually require the performance of at least one service, but which services will be required may not be known at the time the repair request is made. It is possible for services to be available at PEAR but that have never been required in performing any repair.

Some services involve only labor activities and no parts are required, but most services require the replacement of one or more parts. The quantity of each part required in the performance of each service should also be recorded. For each part, the part number, part description, quantity in stock, and cost is recorded in the system. The cost indicated is the amount that PEAR pays for the part. Some parts may be used in more than one service, but each part is required for at least one service.\

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