Hello please help me with this question The International Wi

Hello, please help me with this question!

The International Widget Corporation is a small-sized manufacturer and importer of hardware parts (widgets, flanges, thingamabobs, and so forth). In its present manual tracking system, orders received are recorded in a ledger (the \"Record of Orders\"), with information about the specific items to be delivered.

The image below contains four (4) examples of orders. Each multi-line row represents one order.

Carefully examine the data examples and answer the following questions:

(a) How efficient would the present format of the data be for storing the orders when the system is automated?

(b) What kind of data structure would be necessary for holding this order data in memory in its present form? Explain the data structure clearly, using diagrams if needed.

(c) Identify at least five (5) problems or issues in the data instances shown. Why would each be a problem for the business users of the data?

(d) If you could reorganize the data to make its structure more effective, what would you change? Why? (Explain each change you would make.)

INTERNATIONAL WIDGET CORPORATION RECORD OF ORDERS (excerpt) CUST ITEM ORDER CUST CUST STATE ID DATE ID |NAME DESCRIPTION 9046 022899 2001 Acme Mfg OH 137 Model A Widget 5700 A92 Flange Assembly 225 263 Assembly Manual 15 9047 030199 0376 Boston Bldrs. MA 421 Model C Widget 1900 4000 027 Round Hd. Screw 9049 030199 1198 F&H; Builders WI 137 Widget type A 1200 A93 Type 2 Flange 225 A94. Flange Bracket 200 9050-1 030299 2001 Acme Mfg. OH 421 Model C Widget 2710 924 Flange Assembly 76F Gasket Clamp 76E Left Gasket UNIT SALES PRICE PERSON Ohio 4.957 Brooks 109.4 15.95 2.847 Thomas New Engl. 0.040 5.950 Willis South 109.400 6.003 2.847 Smith Ohio 109.40 9.21

Solution

a. The present format of data is inefficient way of storing orders because there are multiple repititive fields. The unit price and description is same for each item id, but it is repeatedly stored with every order. So there is redundancy of the information and this is an inefficient way of storing data. Similarly, customer name is also repititive.

b. This data can be stored as a structure or as a class. Within the stucture we will define fields for storing each attribute. The attributes item id, description, quantity and unit price must be arrays within the structure or class.

c. The 5 issues for business users will be

1. Finding the total quantity for each item is difficult and needs lot of searching

2. Grouping orders for a customer will be a difficult task as the entire table needs to be searched

3. Finding orders that need to be fulfilled first according to date will be difficult

4. Billing the customer would be difficult and lot of calculations need to be done.

5. Orders fulfilled cannot be tracked.

d. Split the table such that the item id, description and unit price is in one data structure. Customer name, territory, customer id, customer state is in one data structure. Order id, date, item id, customer id & quantity is in another data structure, which is arranged by date.