Boston Building Design Database
HOMEPAGE FOR DATABASE
Problem
BBR (Boston Building Resource) is a local non-profit business organization target to inspire, educate, and empower homeowners to increase the efficiency and value of their homes. They are focusing on affordable solutions that help all their neighbors.
As a team of database/inventory, our objective is to implement a higher functional method to improve both efficient and effective in inventory processing procedures.
Reason for Database management System
Create a more efficient database system to help streamline the BBR donation processing operations is the object. This database will make it easier to identify, record, and price every building material that is donated. In addition, online donors will help in this process by providing this data themselves.
Compare with CRM (Customer relation management)
This new system focuses on being simple and organized so that multiple employees can use it while maintaining the same data accuracy. It will be easy to interact with and simple to price materials accordingly. After a couple of months of data entry, pricing will be facilitated since more materials that are already in the system will have already been priced. All the employee must do it look up the last pricing.
Action
Inventor control and process
Floor layout of processing room has be redesign. Object is to organize the processing room into sections so that the employees know what needs to be processed, what is currently being processed, and what is ready to move to the storefront. A simple diagram would look something like this:
Layout Design
Action
Further step was to standardize the processing progress in workstations. BBR offered working process as following:
Search for donor by name/number (Why not by donation number?)– typically general product information and general description of the items are listed out on this form
Receiver has to get item details of the donation e.g. model #, Serial #, Manufacture date, (sometimes, located in hard to reach areas) (Doesn’t this effort apply only to appliances?)
For appliances, search on Appliance 411 to find age (and for discontinued appliances go to AJ Madison or any vendor to find comparable products/appliances)
Google item to find price, and at times check at least 3 sites for a fair price if item in novel (Vinnie, please talk about the internal pricing database for price referencing) to find fair representation of price (it’s hard to find a price for discontinued products, so next best thing is to find something comparable))
Assess condition -With help from other staff Test appliances, power tools, household items, selected lights, (gas line, water, proper 240V/ 220V outlet)
Enter the information (Update item category and description as necessary, condition value, quantity and value as new into CRM and, adjust price if necessary, close the donation.
For smaller items e.g. nails, sort, categorize and do quantity adjustment on CRM??
Run “Sweep” program to move information to POS
Open POS. Open each item, hit ‘Edit and Save’ to print tags
Attach printed tags to items, place “Tested by Sticker” on appropriate items and move it to the floor
Database Design
Action
Whenever a donator comes in with either one or multiple objects, the worker taking care of them will manually insert the items in a database set up with all the information needed. The set up for this database will be like the material donation form seen on the website.
As said earlier, the goal of the database is to also make it easier and quicker to price the item when received. Currently, only one worker knows how to do this. If the database was implemented, the worker taking care of the donator can quickly look up items previously donated that are similar. To easily do this, including a part in the form that has a broader description of what the item is. What this means is there will be options like electrical, kitchen, floor, etc. for the item to be classified as.
After one of these is chosen, a more specific description can be written. The addition of the broad description allows for it to be easier to look an item up for either information or make it easier to price other items.
Data management
Following are the demo of new database system. The idea of new database management system is improving data input/output which conduct improve in price decision process. Simply input donor ID then price of related item will be shown up.
Demo of Database
Pyhton Coding for Database
HTML Generated Report
Result
The new layout and database were proposed to the executives at BBR. The addition of the database will have multiple long term effects. As more items get logged into the database, the employees will have more records to reference. The more items to reference means pricing the item will be consistently easier with a wider variety of items to compare. Eventually, an item that is a closer match to the item being donated can be used to make a price for the item. Therefore, more than just one worker can be relied on for pricing, leaving more time for other work to be done. The database can include pictures of the items when donated, making it that much easier to identify an object, comparing an object, and not relying just on the description.