Design of a Computerized Inventory Management System for Supermarkets

Abstract

Inventory is often the largest priced asset of a business after the fixed asset. Keeping the inventory also means keeping a tab on the realizable value, market value of all the stocks, stock in production and finished stock. This paper explores the challenges of manual inventory management system for supermarkets and infers solutions to the current challenges by designing a computerized inventory management system to order and update the stocks. The main method used for this research work is interview. Data were collected from 5 heterogeneous supermarkets and used as a tool for obtaining facts. When the goods were supplied the update of the stocks were being taken from time to time. The finding shows the challenges facing the manual system of inventory management system; the manual system requires everyday counting of items in the inventory, human errors are very prevalent during counting and recording and in case of disaster like fire or flood or poor communication, all the manual inventory records will be damaged and irretrievable. Based on the findings this paper highlights the possible solutions to the above problems; a computerized inventory management system to order and update the stocks was designed and goods were supplied to implement the possible solutions.