MCSD - 70-100 - Analyzing Requirements and Defining Solution Architectures
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Contoso Inventory System


Background:
Contoso is a document archive company that stores boxes of documents and business papers for its customers. Contoso has created a logical design for an inventory control system that will be used to track the location of these boxes of documents. In this case study, a box of documents will be referred to as an Item. Contoso hopes to sell this inventory control system to other document archive companies, consequently, Contoso has placed restrictions on the technology that can be used to construct the inventory control system.

System requirements:


Background:
Contoso or the document archive companies who purchase its inventory control system will maintain the system. Contoso cannot attract, hire or retain highly skilled professional developers. The system architecture must be kept simple.
The inventory control system consists of three major functional components: the Database, the warehouse component, and the Business Office component.
Requirements:
>The inventory control system must use the Microsoft SQL Server DBMS.
>The bar code processing application and the business office application must both be written in Microsoft Visual Basic.
>Contoso does not want transaction management software or Web systems.
>Business rules must be stored in a single location as much as possible.
Inventory Requirements:
>The inventory control system must track the location of each Item in the Warehouse.
>Each Item must have one or more bar codes, each of which will have a unique number.
>The inventory control system must manage 10 Million Items.
>An Item will average five Location changes while it is in the Warehouse.
>Each shelf must be labeled with a unique location number.
>Each shelf can hold one or more Items.
>The inventory control system must provide quick access to the shelf location for each Item.
>The inventory control system must provide a history of all changes in the location of an Item while the Item is in the Warehouse.
Warehouse Requirements:
>A bar code reader must be used to track the movement of Items within the Warehouse.
>The physical structure of the Warehouse makes radio-frequency bar code readers impractical.
>The bar code Reader must store the Item Number, the Location Number and the Date and Time of the last move.
>The bar code reader must store the Item Information and the Location Information until the information is uploaded into the Database.
>The bar code Processing Application must support up to 20 concurrent bar code Readers.
>The database must record all movements of an Item in the Warehouse

Business Office Requirements:


Background:
The Business Office user processes orders from Contoso's customers. Customer orders consist of request for the pickup of Items from the customer, delivery of Items to the customer, and an inventory of the customer's Items in the Warehouse.
Requirements:
>The Business Office Application must provide an on-screen or printed inventory of Items for each customer.
>The Application must provide an on-screen or printed physical location of the items for each customer.
>The Application must provide a method of scheduling the return of an Item from the Warehouse to the customer.
>The Application must support up to 10 concurrent users.
Proposed Database Tables:
Customers: contains information about the owner of item.
Items: contains information about an Item in Warehouse.
Locations: contains information about the various shelves in the Warehouse.
ItemNumbers: contains information about the bar codes assigned to an Item.
ItemLocationHistory: contains information about the history of an Item's Location.

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