Cynthia Perry

Unit 4

< Development and Implementation of a Network for the Second Look Consignment Shop Clothing Chain>

Project Description

The Second Look is a group of three consignment stores located in KY. These three separate locations are Elizabethtown, Cave City, and Leitchfield. The stores sell clothing on consignment. They sell new (1-2 seasons old) clothing, which can be higher end or designer label. The store sells clothing (men’s and women’s), shoes, belts and purses. There is however, the problem of no computer systems whatsoever. This at times has led to problems with knowing the available inventory. Also, there have been times when clothing coming into the store has been lost or misplaced.

The stores have a total of twelve employees, 4 per store, and are open Monday through Saturday. The hours for the stores are nine a.m. to five p.m. each day. There is one manager at each location, with the owner working primarily out of the Elizabethtown store. She is also the acting manager in that location. She wants more flexibility and capabilities to be more connected to the other locations when the need arises.

The scope of this project is two fold. The stores need a network installed in all three of them. They also want to have a database of customers and available product in each store. The scope of the project is that all three stores will be interconnected and able to share information on available stock in the stores. The stores will benefit in their ability to share information on available stock. If a customer is coming to look for a particular product or even a particular clothing designer, they can now find it in their store. Whichever store that may be.

My IAL project would be to install a network and database for these three stores.

The feasibility study that I conducted I questioned 75 customers of this store for their opinions on how the store functions and what they would like to see change. There were 25 people taken from each location and a series of questions were asked about the store. The questions and the results are posted below.

1. Was this your first time shopping at the store? 12-y 63-n

2. Do you shop here more than once a month? 17-y 58-n

3. Do you come to the store looking for a specific item? 39-y 36-n

Have you came to the store and not found a specific

item? 49-y 26-n

5. After this experience did you go elsewhere? 30-y 19-n

Given the answers to this small survey, people come to the Second Look for certain clothing items and sometimes are not finding what they are looking for. The answers to the questions also indicated a willingness to go to another store if the item was not there. Therefore it would seem the Second Look is losing customers because they do not know what is in every store.

Another aspect of feasibility is the cost of the network. The available budget for a new network is $125,000. An estimated cost for the network including six printers, six workstations, and three servers is $25,000. This does not include the installation of the equipment itself or the development of the database. These costs will be at an hourly rate. As of now the estimated cost of the network is well below the available budget for the network.

Attached is the customer database to include an entry form for building the customer database of available customers and clothing that they wish to sell. Off this database, queries can be ran so that other stores can find availability of various types and clothing designers available in other shops.

This database is called projectdatabase and is a Microsoft acccess database.

Objectives

a. My first learning objective is to learn more of the inner workings of actual network installation. Going from point a to point b in a hands on environment will show many more nuances when installing a network. Reading about it in a book is much different than actually doing it.

b. My second learning objective is to finish my program and obtain my degree.

c. My third objective is a more personal one. When working on things like this, one must have good communications skills. My communications skills in both verbal and written form need improving and this project will help that out.

a. The biggest objective of this project is for every store to have better information exchange among the stores. This project must enable real time communications to query each store for a particular item; it’s price and any other information about that item.

b. The project must enable the storeowner to make reports of merchandise sold donor’s accounts and expense reports.

c. The system must communicate effectively with all parts of the network. If someone needs to print information or send files to another store, the network must be responsive.

The ISP must be able to provide 24x7 service and a help desk for any possible problems with the network.

Project Schedule

In producing my IAL Project I will apply the following project schedule:

Risk Management

In producing my project I performed the following risk assessment:

Contingency Plan

After completing a risk analysis it has been determined that the high-level risks to the successful completion of my project are:

Going over the allotted time for the completion of the project.

Equipment failure during installation.

Improper training of the employees on the computer equipment.

Efforts to offset these risks are in place. However, if for some reason my project does not appear to be developing successfully regardless of the efforts made, I would present reasons why I am unable to proceed with the project as planned. Appropriate redirection of the plan would take place upon instructor and/or stakeholder approval and the new direction would be discussed in the final project report. Redirection might be to permit the [analysis, testing, presentation, or other] phase(s) of my project to constitute my project in its entirety. The outstanding phase(s) (e.g., implementation) of my project would in such case be completed outside the scope of the capstone project. Upon approval, such redirection would represent my project in its entirety.

Literature Review

I performed the following literature review concerning the value in producing my project:

1. Introduction to Information Systems, Tenth Edition, James A. O’Brien, copyright 2001, McGraw-Hill publishers.

This book is a beginner’s edition about computers and networks. It discusses in depth computers and how information is important in a business environment. Also, how important networking is in terms of sharing that information across any business.

2. Management Information Systems, Fifth Edition, Jane P. and Kenneth C. Laudon, copyright 1998, Prentice Hall publishers.

A book about how computers are interconnected in the work and how information helps in the current business environment. The book also discusses in great length, information about computer modeling and the basics about computer databases and what they are.

3. Database Management Systems, Second Edition, Gerald V. Post, copyright 2002, McGraw-Hill publishers.

This book discusses what are computer databases. It details what a database is, how it works, and the benefits that using computer databases can provide a business in terms of the importance of the information it can provide.

4. The Network Troubleshooting Handbook, Third Edition, Ed Taylor, copyright 2002, McGraw Hill publishers.

This book goes into detail about what computer networks are and how to fix the possible problems that occur with computer networks. It also goes into a discussion about how information flows through a computer network and how

This website goes into much more detail about the pros of why a business or person should have a network. It goes into great detail about the security advantages and information sharing.

Appendix

The following appendixes would be added to the Integrated Action Learning Project Final Report to provide a sample of my work and to evidence satisfactory project completion:

Appendix A: The following is a copy of the schematic of the network.

Appendix B: Letter of Satisfactory Project Completion from Stakeholder, Mildred Rogers.