Your insight into our business needs is greatly appreciated, and we believe that it has been generally reflected in the system you are proposing. In fact, we eagerly anticipate the system you have generally described here. It's starting to sound like just what we had in mind. It should allow us to gently enter the computer era, and give us the competitive advantage that we sorely desire.

"Every business faces three strategic challenges: demand risk, innovation risk, and inefficiency risk." (1) Globalization of the world market exposes firms to levels of competition, of a scope, never seen before. With the PSDS system, we hope to help Northam meet these challenges and ease Northam into the new technological era.

A key advantage of PSDS is that data will be updated almost instantenously. In years past, there was always the danger that employees were referencing an outdated version of the data. With PSDS, this problem will practically be eliminated. This efficient and effective means of continual upkeep will allow Northam to stay informed.

The graphical user interface of PSDS, maintains a consistant layout to ease navigation through the system. This system contains error-control procedures, in addition to user-friendly displays, to minimize errors. Interactive graphical screen displays will allow employees to return to any previously entered data and make corrections.

PSDS will satisfy Northam's needs on every level. The system will allow employees to maintain daily delivery schedules, generate invoices and to summarize sales information. Generating hardcopies of these services will only require simple mouse clicks.

The system will maintain customer and sales information for household customers, retail customers and newsboxes. Adding products (newspapers and magazines) to the aformentioned is as simple as point an click.

The full implementation of the system would include more reports to do tactical analysis that will make decision making easier and assist in strategic planning for determining long-term policy. In the end PSDS will streamline operations by elminating tedious and mind numbing duties. This will assist in reducing mistakes and errors resulting in improved customer satisfaction.

Further details of the system are avaliable in the User Interface, Data Abstraction, and Data Dictionary sections of this document.

Back to Top

Hardware and Software requirements

There is a big difference between the user who connects to the system with a "slow computer" and the user who connects with a "fast computer". So, to make the most of the PSDS prototype, here are the pieces of hardware that are recommended. Each system should run on an IBM compatible workstation, with a 15" SVGA colour monitor with a resolution of 800x600 or greater. PSDS will require the minimum of a Pentium microprocessor (100MHz or greater), with at least 16MB of RAM. Access to two printers: an dot matrix printer for printing daily delivery lists ,and a laser printer for creating quality reports, graphs and summaries, would be highly desired.

The software we will be using is Micrsoft Access--a productive, yet easy-to-use tool that will enable us to create a prototype representative of the final PSDS system. Access is a Relational Database Management tool that allows for the simple creation, maintenance, and organization of data. By combining visual interface design tools with an integrated development environment, it will allow us to create powerful applications fast. In addition, this language provides many predefined forms and intrinsic functions that will greatly speed up development of this prototype.

All these features, of Access, will allow us to free up more time for focusing on application-specific code that performs program actions in response to events. It has the speed, tools and database access we desire in a prototyping language.

The final version of PSDS will be easy to install, set up and maintain. However, if problems should arise, Gorillasoft provides complete customer support and service through a network of authorized "Gorillasoft Customer Care Centers." In Canada, call (800)111-1111.

---

(1) J. Child, Information technology, organizations, and the response to strategic challenges. California Management Review. Fall 1987:33-50.

Back to top
Back to Overall Design Document