Web Based Printing Press Management System

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02 Nov 2017

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Thilina Printers is a small sized printing company which was established in 1994. It is situated in the district of Kandy, and has a workforce of twenty tow employees. It has a diverse and vast customer base nationally. Thilina Printers has been providing professional industrial printing services to Government technical college students. At present, they do not have a systematic way to manage their customer, employee and supplier data, invoicing and quotations, order processing, estimation, stock control, employee salaries, financial expenditure and generating reports. All aspects of the existing system are managed manually and through a physical file-based system. The company’s Production Unit was recently relocated to a new building, whilst other units remained in the original establishment. As a result of the relocation, the company Manager encountered numerous issues with the existing manual system which incited in a gap of communication between employees, delays completing orders in time, data redundancy, customer dissatisfaction and inability to provide accurate data and timely reports.

The printing industry, in the current economic climate, has experienced enormous growth and become immensely competitive due to the demand generated by the marketing industry and the need for mass distribution of information in dense populations. The proposed web-based solution, the Printing Press Management System (PPMS) is designed to address the issues of the existing system and provide management platforms as per the company’s business needs. As the PPMS is a web-based solution, it can be accessed from multiple business locations and sites.

The analysis and design of the system was developed using object oriented techniques and Unified Modeling Language (UML). The system coding was done using the Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) server-side scripting language and JavaScript. Apache has been used as the web server, although MySQL was used to handle databases. This system can be operated on any Windows or Linux environment.

The proposed PPMS was designed according to user and system requirements to address the existing problems. This system offers solutions which will enhance organizational growth, efficiency, and profitability.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

In today’s age of information, connectivity and technology, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is widely-spread across the world. "ICT intervention, applied to the right problems in the right way, delivers enormous efficiency and effectiveness gains to organization. The challenges in this regard are to identify the real problems and to strategically apply the organization’s resources so that these investments are appropriately aligned with the organization’s business goals.[BOOK-1]" The printing industry is experiencing exponential growth with the use of this technology. Similar to industry trends, this PPMS introduces a systematic method to manage an organization, incorporating the appropriate ICT products specifically designed for the company, therefore enabling the company to provide good customer service and increases their growth, efficiency, productivity.

The printing industry is one of the most successful industries in Sri Lanka. Thilina printers also provide quality products and services to its customers which in turn supports the Sri Lankan economy. This project aims to provide a mechanism to control the organization’s business management processes in an effective way, in consideration of its future business needs and decision-making capacities of all levels of management.

1.2 PROBLEM DOMAIN AND NEED OF THE PROJECT

Thilina Printers have established a significant customer base which spans across Sri Lanka since 1994. They are a fast-growing organization and has built a highly reputable name in the industry and have gained much recognition as a result of their quality products. There are currently no automated systems to manage daily operations and the business overall. The client currently utilizes only manual systems resulting in a lot of paperwork to manage business processes proving to be laborious and time consuming which consequently leads employee and customer dissatisfaction. The problems of the existing manual system are listed as follows:

All customer, employee and supplier details are managed in an inaccurate method and maintains redundant data

Employees are unable to track and manage customer orders effectively which results in critical delays in order delivery times for regular customers during the busy season.

Customers have limited awareness of the range of services provided by Thilina Printers.

The current system does not allow the review of historical data and filtering.

Currently client has no system to generate weekly, monthly and/or yearly reports.

No auto-estimation system so customers can be quoted on product costs and as such can place orders quickly and accurately.

Limited ability to track company’s profit and loss through paper-based file management system and therefore unable to determine and forecast progress.

The client requires a computer system to address these problems and manage the daily activities in an efficient and effective manner. PPMS will assist in improving customer relationships, manage resources more efficiently, understanding of future business and decision-making needs of all levels of management.

It was a beneficial opportunity to apply the theoretical and practical knowledge gathered throughout the Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) Degree program in implementing this project. Today, internet usage and web technologies are growing rapidly in Sri Lanka, which is the motivating factor in identifying the necessity to implement a web-based system for Thilina Printers. A web-based printing press management system will help assist in future decision-making and establishing business goals for the company and improving its efficiency, effectiveness and long-term customer satisfaction.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

This project’s main aim is to design and develop a business management system to address the problems in existing, manual file-based system and to improve organizational work efficiency, management and accuracy of daily operations. The objectives of the project are to:

Provide an effective and efficient method to maintain and update customer, supplier and employee records;

Manage and maintain inventory data, orders and invoicing information;

Provide an efficient and effective way to manage business finances including income and employee wage information;

Maintain special administrative controls, permissions and system logins for employees based on employee privileges;

Automate monitoring and replenishment of stock;

Effectively priorities orders according to urgency;

Maintain order history and provision to reprioritize and filter completed orders;

Produce accurate and automated reports, which facilitate determining future business needs and decision-making;

Reduce order delays and increase productivity of employees and business processes; and

Improve quality of customer care by providing efficient and effective information services online.

1.4 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

The scope defines the functional or non-functional level requirements which are encompassed by the proposed PPMS. It also incorporates time, resources, technical requirements and client requirements as follows:

The proposed system will maintain customer, employee and supplier information. This provides an easy mechanism to search, filter and update all records.

The system will manage and maintain invoices and order information. The system will keep records of customer order history and filter for future use in assisting with ongoing re-orders. This also includes an efficient and accurate method to generate invoices.

The stock management system will provide an effective way to manage stock and automatically notify replenishments when required. It will also generate stock reports.

The report generation system will produce accurate and automated reports. This is an effective method to manage business finances including income, employee wage information, profit and loss and all other processes which will assist in determining future business needs and decision-making.

The system will establish secure access system logins for employees. This will provide different access levels and special administrative controls based on employee privileges and permissions.

1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION

This dissertation consists of 5 main chapters exclusive of the Introduction. These chapters outline the problems of the existing system and the business needs of the customer taken into consideration when building the proposed PPMS.

1.5.1 CHAPTER 2 – ANALYSIS

The Analysis chapter describes the requirements gathering techniques and the functional and non-functional requirements. This chapter also details the processes of the current system and the proposed system.

1.5.2 CHAPTER 3 – DESIGN

The Design chapter includes the overall plans for the system and also defines the design methodologies, design tools and diagrams which were used in the development of the design. This chapter also outlines the Usecase diagram, ERD diagram, class diagram and the user interface designs of the system.

1.5.3 CHAPTER 4 – IMPLEMENTATION

The Implementation chapter describes the coding modules of the system. This mainly details the implementation environment, software tools, development languages and technologies. This chapter also contains the main code segments of the system.

1.5.4 CHAPTER 5 – EVALUATION

The Evaluation chapter describes the testing techniques and procedures. In this stage, the system was tested using sample data and drawn test-case scenarios.

1.5.5 CHAPTER 6 – CONCLUSION

The Conclusion chapter outlines the critical environment of the system and details the best approach in improving the system in future. This chapter also includes the experiences and lessons learned from this project.

CHAPTER 2 ANALYSIS

2.1 INTRODUCTION

System analysis is a very important step in the software development life cycle. This chapter includes an overview of the process of existing system, fact finding technique, functional requirements and non-functional requirements.

The success factor of software highly depends on requirement analysis stage. It will take more time and effort during a system analysis stage. The main goal of this phase understands the domain of the organization, understanding user requirements clearly, analysis the collected requirements and validate and verify analyzed requirement.

2.2 FACT FINDING TECHNIQUES

Multiple processors and techniques used to gather requirement of client. The main fact finding methods used in here is interviews, observation, gathering sample material and document review. In this stage used different fact-finding methods to identify different user requirement from different stakeholders.

"The interview is used to collect the information from groups or individuals. The analyst selects the people who are related with the system for the interview. In this method the analyst sits face to face with the people and records their responses. [WWW-1]" The system user or system owner is the interviewee, who is responding to a series of questions. This very good method to get knowledge about user requirements.

"Observation unlike the other fact finding techniques, in this method the analyst himself visits the organization and observes and understand the flow of documents, working of the existing system, the users of the system etc. For this method to be adopted it takes an analyst to perform this job as he knows which points should be noticed and highlighted. [WWW-1]" This is the best method to understand the working process of the existing system.

Record review is the information related to the system is published in the sources like newspapers, magazines, journals, documents etc. This record review helps the analyst to get valuable information about the system and the organization.[WWW-1]" This method helps to find the relevant data fields in the relevant data tables.

2.3 ANALYSING THE CURRENT MANUAL SYSTEM

Thilina printers mainly provide digital printing and offset printing service. In addition to that the provide professional industrial printing services to Government technical college students. Mainly digital printing process has few steps like art work design, verify art work, select printing scale and print. But offset printing process contains several steps as below.

C:\Users\SANJAYA\Desktop\offset-chart.png

Figure 2.1 Process flow chart of offset printing [www-2]

As above diagram the entire process distribute over several section in the organization. During analysis process PPMS has been divided in to five logical subsystems. This method helped to get clear picture about organization main processes. During analysis process analyzed each subsystem separately and understands the functionalities of each sub system. Organization has contained five subsystems as follows Purchase and Expenses Management System, Human Resource Management System, Production Management System, Stock Management System and Inventory Management System.

2.3.1 USE CASE DIAGRAM FOR THE EXISTING SYSTEM C:\Users\SANJAYA\Pictures\HD\UseCaseDiagram1.png

Figure 2.2 Usecase Diagram for the Existing system

2.3.2 PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The printing industry mainly depends on production department. "The production department in an enterprise is not only concerned with the full exploitation of production facilities but also the human factor that indirectly affects the production, utilization of latest techniques of production and the production of quality goods for the satisfaction of customers of the product. [WWW-3]"

Thilina printers production department can be categories into two parts like digital printing unit and offset printing unit. The production unit is the largest unit in an organization. It and has a workforce of fifteen employees. There are many job roles addressed in this department such as a machine operator, machine helper, training staff, plate maker, artwork designers and etc.

The offset unit can be categories into three parts like art work design, binding unit and printing unit. These units mainly doing printing jobs like invitation cards, paper posters, book printing, visiting cards and etc. In this unit few processes were carried out as mention in Figure 2.1. When a customer makes order it will forward to the production unit. As the first step the order move to art work design unit and the art work designer has designed suitable artwork according to the customer request. After the design stage finished it has to verify from relevant customer. When verification and modification processes are done, it will move to color separation. After the color separation process was done, it will move to printing unit. In here as a first step plate maker burns offset plates according to the relevant color separation positives. An initially printing process started after burn offset plates. After finishing printing process it will move to binding unit. In here mainly done gathering, binding, cutting and few sub processes, and finished the job. Packing processor is staring after finishing the whole process and move packed bundles to the stock.

The digital printing process can be called as a direct-to-paper printing process. In here there is two main processes include in whole process Art work design and printing process. The digital printing section is mainly print two types of print jobs like flex and stickers. In here work process is very simple first design art work then verified it from the customer. After verifying the relevant artwork it will move to print. After finishing printing process it will move to place revert rings in the banner.

The company’s Production Unit was recently relocated to a new building, whilst other units remained in the original establishment. As a result of the relocation, with the existing manual system organization faced the vast problem of communication between employees in the production unit. As a result of that delay the whole work process in production unit. Within the existing manual system they were communicating using the help of email and Skype. During the communication there is a lot of conflict occurs because of poor communication. The web-based PPMS built to overcome this problem and increase the work process of the production unit.

2.3.3 PURCHASE AND EXPENSES MANAGEMENT SYSTEM



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