Data Server Technology - Database Modeling and Implementation For Essay

Data Server Technology - Database Modeling and Implementation For International Parcel Deliveries - Essay Example The paper tells that upon studying the system requirements, it was analysed that the application/business would require capturing 3 different types of details for each transaction: customer details, order details and invoice details and a look up database for obtaining the cost for the each item on the order based on the destination and the item type. Customer details would include a customer id that uniquely identifies each customer, customer name, address, postal/region code and the type of the customer (business/Private). The order details would include an order id that uniquely identifies the each order, order date, item to be shipped, destination details like name and address, destination Company and destination country, order arrival date and departure/shipped date, charge for the order, payment method and the payment status, and the order status. The invoice details would include an invoice id that uniquely identifies an invoice, invoice amount, invoice created and the due dat e and the invoice status. Using these general idea, the conceptual model or the ER (Entity Relationship) model can be created using UML (Unified Modeling Language). From the above requirement analysis, the entities are identified as customer, order invoice and cost. The ER diagram is first defined for each entity along with their attributes as shown in the below figure. Each Customer can have zero/one/more Orders, but no two customers can have same order id (one order contains information for one customer only). Customer/Invoice: Each Customer can place zero/one Invoice and no two customers can have same Invoice id (One invoice is created for one customer only). Order/Shipment: One order can be sent to one or more shipments (shipment here just means number of items but destination is same) depending upon the number of items but each shipment contains information about one order only. Cost/Shipment: One entry in the cost lookup can be supplied to one/many shipment (order id + item no combination) but no two cost entry should be available for one shipment (one shipment contains only one entry from cost entity). Assumptions: The above model is designed based on the following assumption: All the fields entered by the user in the web application are validated for invalid input errors before storing it in the database. Destination field in the web application is filled by the user from a predefined list (may employ a drop-down list) whose values for pulled up from the destination look up table and not by entering the text for destination manually. b) Relational Model: The first step in creating the relational model is normalization. Normalization is the process of eliminating data redundancy and update anomalies (the errors while inserting, updating or deleting the database due to improper relations definitions) in order to efficiently organise the data in the database. 1st Normal Form (1NF): 1NF requires that each group of related items must be stored in a separate table with a unique column (primary key) which identifies each row in the table and all occurrences of a record type

Globalization of the Production Chain Literature review

Globalization of the Production Chain - Literature review Example As the paper outlines, technology has facilitated competence and the most efficient and cheap labor is hired due to globalization. With globalization, computer production has become global and its production is spread to over 40 countries. Dell, Microsoft, IBM etc. are brands known in every part of the world. Globalization has enabled such global brand recognition and brand awareness amongst the customers (Ding and Akhtar 2001, pp.946-65).  Ding and Akhtar (2001), claim that this industry has had revolutionary changes because of globalization and all the giant players have production chains that are spread across major regions of the world. A focus on the market leader Dell reveals the influence globalization has had on the production chain and the human resource.  Dedrick & Kraemer (2002), claim that the personal computer industry shows the impact globalization has had on the business world. However, Dell has shown remarkable growth and is the current market leader when it comes to reaping the advantages of globalization.  Dell has been able to maintain its business model even in the globalizing industry through its smart planning and strategies in line with globalization. Dell made the best use of its resources and has the most efficient supply chain and thus has been able to excel its competitors IBM and Microsoft (Rosenau and Earnest 2004). Hudetz (1998) says that initially, supply chains of the PC industry were vertically integrated and required the firms to undertake the major tasks of product design, structuring, innovation, customer relation, and operations internally. With such a production chain the costs were high and the process was time-consuming (Ding and Akhtar 2001, pp.950-65). Even market leaders like Dell initially produced complete systems and was based in the United States while it outsourced some of the components from other manufacturers (Rosenau and Earnest 2004).  According to Ardnt (2001), these were the initial phases of the PC supply chain at Dell and in the entire industry at large. IBM which was also a big brand at the time also imported minor parts from other regions and had a relatively wide supply chain network. Gradually the industry realized that importing parts from other regions and countries cut down the costs and thus intermediary firms sprouted up which supplied such parts to the industry at competitive rates (Rosenau and Earnest 2004). Although Dell was technologically more advanced and had a strategy that would enable them to pierce the global market, they could not do so. This was because their costs were high when compared to the competitors like IBM who were outsourcing supplies from cheaper, developing nations and were more cost-effective and were able to reap more profit (Dowling 1999, pp. 30-42). According to Rosenau and Earnest (2004) with globalization strategies, Dell and other MNC's including the IBM and Microsoft set up their branches within other countries. In 1990s Dell was the first to surge the global markets especially the developing countries like India, China, Pakistan, and Malaysia, paving the way for the other big brands to follow in its footsteps (Rosenau and Earnest 2004). Globalization enabled them to get the cheapest rates and a competitive quality (Arndt 1997, pp. 695-707).