Can someone send me a sample of inventory system requirements specification document?

Question

It's a project and we need to get a sample so we can be guided. On more thing i'm not an IT major student, i'm an accounting student. But we have to produce and defend this system proposal. To be more specific, we've chosen a FIFO inventory monitoring system. It doesn't have to be really hi-tech or a very complicated system a simple one will do. We're having problems specially with features, use case, and other technical functions... PLEASE, HELP...

Answer 1

I've written several inventory databases so, even though I don't have a prepared spec for you, I might be able to help. Your question is actually a bit vague so my response may be too. Much of the spec’s for any inventory system will rely on what is being inventoried and why. If you inventory your personal cd collection, FIFO would be irrelevant. If you inventory a manufacturing facility, you'd need to distinguish between finished inventory and work-in-process inventory and raw material inventory and maybe even on-quality-hold inventory. And 'system' could mean the physical procedures, or a program used to track the data. But you said simple and you said FIFO and you're on a computer based board so let’s assume a program to track cheese in a retail store would make a good example. And let's assume no back room storage that has to be counted separately.

Cheese is perishable so FIFO makes sense but each unit does not have an individual identifier so you'll be tracking lots (expiration dates) instead.

The basic requirements would be

1) a screen or method to input new inventory.

   It must record the type of cheese, the lot number and the storage  location broken down as specifically as possible.

( i.e.  Provolone, 12/15/2010, aisle 2, rack B, row 5, column 2).

   For accounting, you may also want the date received, vendor, invoice number, who unloaded it, who shelved it, etc.

2) a screen or method to remove inventory.

   This must have at a minimum the type of cheese, the lot number if available, date removed from inventory and removal type. The type of removal would include choices like sold, out-of-date, donated to charity and inventory adjustment. It would be nice to have the location but that's often impossible to determine if t's sold, which you hope most items are. I'd record the location when available and assume inventory counts will fix the rest.

3) A screen or method to facilitate inventory counts.

  A 'simple' system would include a way to print out the current inventory by location and have room on the report for corrections. A person then takes the inventory report to the field, counts the product and makes corrections on the report that are later typed into the program as inventory adjustments.

  Newer systems now skip the report and use a hand held scanner to correct inventory directly to the database.

  A nice feature here is a way to keep the old and the new corrected counts to determine unaccounted for inventory.

4) Optional: You could have a method to move inventory from one location to another but usually you just remove it from one location with removal type 're-stocked and then enter into the new location.

5) a way to add data not specific to an item coming into or out of inventory.

  This would primarily be pricing, vendor info, employee info and other info that doesn't change from shipment to shipment. You'd also need a way to associate lot numbers with cost so that a price increase only reflects the new inventory but older stock is still valued at the lower amount.

6) and for you accounting type people, the most important requirement would be reports! Start with obvious ones like: How many came in, how many went out total? how many sold? how many went bad? how many unaccounted for? But the next level is often more useful like: which day of the week had most sales? which rack or column sold best? which row (eye height) sold the most? If an item is moved, did it sell more or less than it's old location? did item go out of date more in some locations? did items go unaccounted (possibly stolen) more from some locations? And then there's the employee related reports: How long between receiving items and stocking them? Does one user have more items go bad (especially if they go bad before expiration date)? Are more items unaccounted for stocked by user A or user B? And last but not least, money: How much did we spend? how much did we make? which items have highest profit margin? are any items loosing money? Is any stock location outselling others? Are the highest profit margin items in the best selling locations?

7) NON-Accountents too!

  Still mainly reports but inventory systems are oftem part of or assiciated with purchasing sytems. Invetory reports help decide what needs to be ordered, in what quantities and how often. Look for: Total count by item, Item reorder points, Items below re-order point, items that will reach re-order this week at current pace. Long lead time items, Overstocked items, items due to go on sale, etc.

From all of this and based on whatever scenario you had in mind, you should be able to write a functional spec that could be given to a programmer to develop a system to fit your needs.

One other hint, if you can't find an actual spec you might try looking for prepackaged inventory programs on-line. Their 'features' list is almost as good as a spec in many cases.

Good Luck