Design And Implementation Of Products Expiry Alert Management System

INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Products control is the process of managing products in order to meet customer demand at the lowest possible cost and with a minimum investment, Byoungho (2014). A successfully implemented products control program takes into account such things as purchasing goods commensurate with demand, seasonal variation, changing usage patterns, expiration alerts and monitoring for pilferage, Ellram (2016). A preliminary step in the process of product control is to determine the approximate costs of managing inventory. According to Langabeer and Stoughton (2011), these costs include such expenses as storage costs, inventory risks, and the loss-of opportunity costs associated with tying up capital. Product management is a vital function to help ensure the success of manufacturing and distribution companies and lately retail stores. The effectiveness of Product management systems is directly measurable by how successful a company is in providing high level of customer service, low inventory investment, maximum throughput and low costs, Ellram (2016). The challenge of productive product management is to support an upward trend in sales while keeping the investment at the lowest level consistent with adequate customer service. Control of inventory, which typically represents 45% to 90% of all expenses for business, is needed to ensure that the business has the right goods on hand to avoid stock-outs, to prevent shrinkage (spoilage/theft), provide proper accounting and prevent unnecessary loss of goods due to expiration.
Articles stored and later used in this way are known collectively as inventory. In large organizations, it is usual for inventory to be in tens, even hundreds of items valued at tens of millions of naira. Given this state, it has become natural to have inventory items represented in computer-maintained files. Computer especially microcomputer has become an important tool in all types of business from one-man operations up to large international business firms. Every business manager needs to know what he purchased, what he sold and what is remaining in the warehouse. For this obvious reason, large, small and medium organizations, companies and government, as a whole need computerization of inventory control. The speed at which the administrative and paper work in retail stores increases on daily basis calls for a corresponding need for a quick and effective device to meet up with the demand. This project hopes to link inventory control and computer system.
This study is to produce software which manages the sales activity done in a supermarket, maintaining the stock details, maintaining the records of the sales done for a particular month/year and most importantly notify users of products which have expired or about to expire. The users will consume less time in calculation and the sales activity will be completed within a fraction of seconds whereas manual system will make the user to write it down which is a long procedure and so paper work will be reduced and the user can spend more time monitoring the supermarket. The program will be user friendly and easy to use. The system will display all the items whose name start with the letter selected by the user. He can select out of those displayed. Finally, a separate bill will be generated for each customer. This will be saved in the database. Any periodic records can be viewed at any time. If the stock is not available, the supermarket orders and buys from a prescribed vendor. The amount will be paid by deducting the total amount acquired in the sales activity. Admin provides a unique username and password for each employee through which he can login.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Although some business owners have incorporated one form of management software or the other in their business, some still use the manual method to manage their business. This manual method is besieged with numerous problems, among which are:
i. Time Consumption: Manual systems are time consuming, as the business owner must keep track of Supermarket sales on a daily basis, and update the master file at the end of the day.
ii. Poor Communication: For a large business that has their workers in different geographical locations, communication is difficult as resources have to be wasted before updated information is gotten.
iii. Poor record keeping: The documentation of the daily sales and general stock records are done with paper and pen. This method is poor as data can easily be manipulated or destroyed either intentionally or by natural disaster.

As for the current product management software which are been used by some companies, they have been seen to have one major limitation; products expiration monitor. This is a very important feature that must exist in a well-developed software. These pieces of software only have the ability to record stocks and manage sales. Lack of expiry monitor has made business owners loose money due to product expiration. There have been cases of business owners selling expired products to users unknowingly. For a case of drug companies, expired drugs become poison to the body. This brings bad name to the company and loss of customers.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main objective of this project is to design a product expiry alert management system for Shoprite (Shoprite Jabi Lake Abuja) which will notify them of any product about which is about to expire or expired. To achieve the stated objective, the following objectives were laid out.
i. Design is an easy to use software with a centralized database which helps in the management and record of stock in Shoprite.
ii. The system should permit the users input product’s production and expiry dates.
iii. Incorporate a sound notification system to notify Shoprite management of any product which is about to expire.
iv. System should keep status and updates of transactions, thereby helping progress level, to determine stock taking and managerial decisions.
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1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
For every new thing developed there must be an advantage, a disadvantage and a significance it will have in the world. The significance of this product alert notifier cannot be over emphasized. It will be of great importance to business owners (Shoprite and any other business where it is applied) as it will reduce if not completely cut off the unknowingly expiration of goods.
It will benefit Shoprite specifically as it will improve the managerial cum administrative strength of the business and move the business forward to meet the demand of times and globalization in this era of technology.
This work can serve as a reference to scholars who are researching in the field of computerized stock management.
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This project work covers stock control, management and expiration notifier. It tends to correct anomalies in Shoprite. It analyses opening of new stocks, stock updates and ability to view existing ones. It provides quick way of operation by capturing the manual process and automating them. It is a stand-alone software built for windows operating system.

1.6 LIMITATION OF STUDY
The major limitation experienced during this research process was during the actual software development. Java source codes required for the display of notifications was difficult to obtain. This made me use the available but less preferred codes for development.
Also, due to time and basic factors like unstable electricity, poor networks, unavailability of concrete business idea and many more this research has been limited to item details registration, registration histories, product expiration monitor and notification display.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
i. Item Name: – This is a name given to each product. This name is unique to the product by which it identifies.
ii. Stock Balance: – This is the number of goods that are present in stock
iii. Receipt: – This is a document prepared to be given out to a customer for confirmation of goods purchased.
iv. Transaction History: – it is used to show all the list of daily sales and stored each record for reference purpose.
v. Low Stock Balance Alert: – it is a reminder that keeps you updated whenever a stock balances is going down or low.