EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR CENTRAL PHILIPPINE UNIVERSITY JARO, ILOILO CITY

A Project Proposal Present to The Faculty of the College of Computer Studies Central Philippine University Iloilo City Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the degree in Bachelor of Science in Information Technology

By Arnesto, April Rose B. Caberte, Shiendrelyn E. Corsino, Chrisel V. Juanitas, Lucilyn V. Lozano, Charles Leonard M. BSIT-3

March 2012

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Overview of the Current State of the technology An inventory control system is a process for managing and locating objects or materials. In common usage, the term may also refer to just the software components. Modern inventory control systems often rely upon barcodes and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to provide automatic identification of inventory objects. In an academic study performed at Wal-Mart, RFID reduced Out of Stocks by 30 percent for products selling between 0.1 and 15 units a day. Inventory objects could include any kind of physical asset: merchandise, consumables, fixed assets, circulating tools, library books, or capital equipment. To record an inventory transaction, the system uses a barcode scanner or RFID reader to automatically identify the inventory object, and then collects additional information from the operators via fixed terminals (workstations), or mobile computers.

The Central Philippine University is a non-stock, non-profit Christian Institution of higher learning, where a well-rounded program of education is offered under influences that strengthen faith and build up character. It was founded in 1905 as the Jaro Industrial School by missionaries of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. It started as an Elementary Vocational School for poor boys who worked for their board and tuition. Perhaps it was the first school in

the Philippines to teach that labor is honor. The school also had the distinction of having organized the first student government in the country- the Jaro Industrial School Republic, and one of the oldest students newspapers- the Central Echo. The equipment management system of Central Philippine University is being handled by the universitys property custodian department. This department tracks and keeps the record of all the universitys property equipments and they also handle the purchasing and request process of the equipment that is being bought for the universitys use. Their current system uses the MS excel or the log book well know as the bluebook for listing or encoding the equipments that are being brought in and for equipment dispose process and they also use the blue book for reservation or borrowing processes of the universitys equipment for other college departments use with the campus. Problems that were encountered are as follows: 1. The property custodian still uses MS Excel for their inventory files which takes time to record and encode the stocks. 2. There is no proper monitoring of equipment status. 3. Difficult to process equipment reservation and there are usually conflicts in the schedule of equipments for borrowing or reservation. 4. An able to generate report on time.

Overview of the Proposed System The CPU Equipment Management System is a computerized system that facilitates the equipment reservation of the faculty and staff. The said equipment management system is composed of two designs, the Hardware Design and Software Design. First, in Hardware design, the said Equipment Management System needs a Client Computer and a Database Server; the client computer should accommodate the transaction from the borrower who wants to have a reservation, the client computers will provide application forms and other graphical user interface needed limited to applicants mode. The database server has a function of storing data from client computer when the user execute save or update option, it is also responsible of sending information to the client computer upon request of the user. And the user now can check by logging in to the system for his reservation request if it is approved or not by the server or the one who the user sent his request to that particular department, upon receiving the output the user can now take the equipment from that department if the request is granted, if not the user could still execute the reservation option but will have to wait until that equipment has been returned or borrow from other departments that have the availability of that equipment if need as soon as possible. And also same with the purchasing and requesting of all departments to the property custodian for their equipment needs for their college department, they could also log in to the system and send their request for that equipment to be bought by the university for

their use. They could also send the quantity of that equipment so the property custodian could generate the canvass and issue the purchasing form.

Objectives of the Study General Objective To design an Equipment Management System for Central Philippine University. Specific Objectives This study aim to develop the following: 1. To create Inventory module or database to manage the inventory of equipments. 2. To develop a system that will monitor the status of the equipment. 3. To create Module for reservation of equipment to manage the reservation request from the different departments using LAN. 4. To create Module to generate inventory reports.

Scope and Limitation The proposed Equipment Management System covers only the processing and reservation of equipment for the faculty and staff of the university. The property custodian will handle all the transaction of reservation and borrowing of equipment for each department, while the Server will handle the data for maintaining and check the availability of the equipment and also to manage the status of the equipment. With this process, the system could generate reports as how much equipment borrowed for the day depending for the availability of the equipment. The system will also record the status of the equipment, monitor and update the status of individual equipment to check if that equipment is available. Other than the above mentioned, it is not cover by the research. Besides the above limitation and scopes, the researchers are still looking for possible enhancement and more features of functionality of the propose system. The system no longer requires the use of internet but uses Ethranet because the system is exclusive for the student and staff of Central Philippine University.

Significance of the Study People are used up to the old manual system of transacting to something. Agreeably, personal application has its own advantage but in this fast-pace of living, surely not all the time we can rely on the slow and time consuming systems that still exists. The possible users that can benefit from the proposed system are the student and faculty of the university.

If implemented, the CPU Equipment Management System will enable the clients to transact faster and more convenient to one another because it will lessen time consumption during transaction, verification and approval of reservation and borrowing of the equipment. This will help the president, students, faculty and staff especially the property custodian in a way that they could track and see the inventory of the university. This way it would be easy for the property custodian to manage or add up any equipment they purchase and could see the status of the equipment. And for the students and faculty they could easily borrow and reserve for any equipment they requested for use, just logging into the system at the work station in their department and they could start their transaction.

Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

Department/Student

Equipment Management System

Property Custodian

Figure 1. Theoretical Framework Control system theory a control system is a device, or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other device(s) or system(s). Industrial control systems are used in industrial production.

There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic or sequential controls, and feedback or linear controls. There is also fuzzy logic, which attempts to combine some of the design simplicity of logic with the utility of linear control. Some devices or systems are inherently not controllable.

Figure 1 explains the development of the proposed system. The CPU Equipment Management System can be access by a borrower from any department in CPU with a user account from the server. The user can fill up an application or reservation form to borrow the equipment. Having examining these current problems, the team developed the Equipment Management System in order to resolve each difficulty in tracking the status of the equipment, speed up the transaction in borrowing and reservation of equipments.

By implementing data security, the system is protected from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction.

Client/Server Architecture

Under the structure of the client-server architecture, a computer network will have a server computer, which functions as the "brains" of the organization, and a group of client computers, which are commonly called workstations. The server part of the clientserver architecture will be a large-capacity computer, with a large amount of data and functionality stored on it. The client portions of the client-server architecture are smaller computers that users use to perform their computer-based responsibilities. Servers commonly contain data files and applications that can be accessed across the network, by workstations or computers. A user who wants to access data files, for instance, would use his or her client computer to access the data files on the server. Other users may use a common-access application by accessing the server through their client computers.

Networking In the world of computers, networking is the practice of linking two or more computing devices together for the purpose of sharing data. Networks are built with a mix of computer hardware and computer software. [COMP2001]

Networking concepts will be used to provide communication between connected computers of Central Philippine University Equipment Management System that executes different transactions.

Data Security

Data Securities is a community focused organization that guarantees fast, reliable, and informed expertise in protecting identity sensitive documents and computers. Securing data are very much important is very much necessary to implement in a computer system. Data security will be applied in the proposed system in order to secure data from data intrusion.

Conceptual Framework

Data Security

Application/Reservation Form

Client/Server Architecture

Borrower/Client

Property Custodian Data Files

Figure 2 shows the overview of the system where the borrower can fill up application forms from any department for his transaction of reservation and borrowing of equipment. It passes through a Client/Server Technology then data will proceed to a specific system which is a data security where the user can secure his profile and data, then it will proceed to the data storage of the Property Custodian Office.

CHAPTER II RELATED LITERATURE

Equipment Tracking With Maintenance Pro, you can track an unlimited number of pieces of equipment. Management is easier than ever, since you can store a description, make, model, serial number, photos, and more for each piece of equipment. 30 custom fields provide the flexibility you need to store information unique to your array of equipment. If using meter tracking, you can select from hours, miles, kilometers, revolutions, gallons, counts, copies, or define your own customized meter type for any piece of equipment. Maintenance Pro features a user-friendly, tree-like structure, which allows you to categorize and quickly locate your equipment. To further aid in tree navigation, you can assign any of 200+ icons to each piece of equipment and to each category.
(http://www.equipment-tracking.co.uk)

Equipment Maintenance Software Systems

Equipment Maintenance Software Systems by Master Control to Manage the Tasks and Schedules for FDA Inspections Master Control offers equipment maintenance software which helps in implementing accurate functioning of instruments, apparatus, gauges, and recording devices which is critical in the manufacturing and analysis of product. The FDA therefore mandates a written program for the routine calibration of such equipment as well as the

retention of calibration records. Besides the obvious quality benefits, such a program also helps minimize downtime in manufacturing and laboratory operations. (http://www.mastercontrol.com/calibration_maintenance/maintenance_software.)

Equipment Maintenance Software

A key element in equipment maintenance software is the ability to use it to view the life history of your equipment. Maintenance software is a key element in any management organization. Using the right equipment maintenance software enables you to productively assess your current company maintenance situation. As work is completed on each piece of equipment contained in the equipment maintenance software, the tasks completed, costs in labor, materials breakdown failures, and even parts replacement information become part of the history of that specific piece of equipment contained in the equipment maintenance software. Why is that important?

First, repetitive failures cost huge amounts of money. This is wasted profit. Reviewing the history contained in your program will help you identify the most costly problems in your operation. In other words, if you ask where the most money is being wasted, the answer is contained in the history of your equipment. (http://www.emaint.com/equipment-maintenance/)

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Figure1.Rapid Application Development (RAD) This technique emphasizes extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the system development process. To more actively involve system users in the analysis, design and construction activities.

To organize systems development into a series of focused, intense workshops jointly involving system owners, users, analysts, designers and builders.

To accelerate the requirements analysis and design phases through an iterative construction approach.

To reduce the amount of time until the users begin to see a working system. To use prototypes to their fullest potential.

Planning

Planning is something that you have decided or arranged to do. Then we look for good proposal that we can use for our study. We proposed several case studies to our thesis adviser to decide which case study the team will develop. We met some problems during the search for the case study. Many thesis proposals were rejected because of limited scope and limitations, inadequate functionalities of the proposed system and small amount of significance to users and the company. Regarding these criteria, the team decided to develop a system that would be very significant to the employees of the university and to the school as well. The team proposed for the system development of the CPU Equipment Management System. The team had started with this project in data gathering with the information that is needed, and think how to make this computerized system would help the staff and the student of the university. The development of this system will take a much of time to create but for sure this would be a effective system that the university could look up and as expected equipment transactions in the university would be man power effort free.

Data Gathering

Data gathering is method of gathering important information. Interview is an example of gathering data interview, is a meeting during which somebody is asked questions by a prospective researcher. Research is methodical investigation into a subject in order to discover facts, to establish or revise a theory, or to develop a plan of action based on the facts discovered or study something to find out facts about it, especially facts that no one knows. Brainstorming is an intensive group discussion without allowing time for reflection, in order to generate creative ideas and usually to stimulate problemsolving. Consultation is a meeting with an expert in a particular field to obtain advice. After the proposed system was approved, the team immediately conducted a factfinding process to start the proposal. To fully understand the borrowing and reservation process, the team conducted an interview in the Property Custodian Office. The team interviewed Mr. Hermogenes P. Pamillo, the Property Custodian of the office. He provided the team all the needed information to bring the proposed system into reality. Aside from interviewing, brainstorming, research, and consultation were also carried out to discover additional information which can help the team. After data gathering, system analysis follows.

Analysis Analysis gathers the requirements for the system. This stage includes a detailed study of the business needs of the organization. Options for changing the business process may be considered. After data gathering, the team organized all collected data, and made a documentation concerning the current and the proposed system. Through vast amount of time spent on how to design the study, system analysis took place. The team talked about how the system might work and considered all the possible problems that the current system encounters and what features of the proposed system will be develop to solve such problems. The team took time to analyze all strengths, weakness, opportunity, and threats of both current and proposed system. After which, the design stage follows.

Design Design focuses on high level design like, what programs are needed and how are they going to interact, low-level design (how the individual programs are going to work), interface design (what are the interfaces going to look like) and data design (what data will be required). During these phase, the software's overall structure is defined. Design is very crucial in the whole development cycle. Any glitch in the design phase could be very expensive to solve in the later stage of the software development. Much care is taken during this phase. The logical system of the product is developed in this phase.

The developers will construct an architecture that will show the flow of the proposed system. The system will use Intranet for connecting different department for the sharing of data. Each computer client will connect to the database server through local web server. Proper networking concept will be implemented to make the transfer of information faster and more secured.

Implementation

Implementation is the processes were the design is translate into a machine-readable form. In this case, design is performed in a detailed manner, implementation can never be very well accomplished. In this phase, the researcher begins to formulate the code in the system proper by using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 as the programming language to perform tasks that rest on the key fundamentals. SQL Server 2005 is being used as the database for the master file. Windows XP operating system will be used for the computer clients in each department and Windows Server 2003 for the File server. Testing

Testing of the system is refers to the internal logic of the software, making sure that all statements have been tested, and on the functional externals and is testing to uncover errors and to ensure that defined input will produce actual results and agree with the required results.

Maintenance

In maintenance, the software will undoubtedly undergo changes that could happen because of some unexpected input values into the system that the system doesnt accept. In order to meet it the developer should developed the software to accommodate the changes that could happen during the post implementation period of the system before it is fully implemented by the university.