Design and Implementation of a Web-Based Inventory Control System Using a Small Medium Enterprise (SME) as a Case Study

Abstract

In recent years, it has been observed that inventory data of most
businesses are manually recorded into a spreadsheet and maintained
with little or no technological innovation which has a lot of
shortcomings in our modern world as it has shown to be challenging
to successfully monitor inventories. In retail industries, inventory
management poses a number of challenges. In order to meet client
demand, companies must maintain inventory in warehouses. The
goal of inventory management is to determine the right amount of
inventory to meet demand while avoiding overstocks. In this research
work, a Web-based Inventory Control System has been designed to
improve on the shortcomings of the previous system. The Web-based
system was created with tracking methods like QR codes and
Barcodes in mind to track products as they travel from point of
purchase to point of sale, between stores (in the case of emergency
supplies from nearby stores), inside individual stores, and lastly
directly to customers. On a daily basis, it also delivers precise up-todate information to the corporate office on the inventory levels of the
individual stores. It also allows specific users (for example, store
managers, heads of operations, and so on) to access the system at
any time from various locations to perform different functions. The
inventory control system is a tremendous boost to the store managers
and corporate office as it helps the store to find items that should be
ordered first thereby spending less time on inventory management
functions. It also helps the corporate office to efficiently monitor
transactions that take place across multiple stores. As a result,
customer service and customer satisfaction will surely increase,
resulting in increased revenue for the company.