Question

Order Processing and Purchasing at Taste Delight Ltd.

I. Taste Delight produces packaged frozen meals that are distributed to retailers on request. The company itself has no stock but has to order from wholesalers on a weekly basis.

II. Retailers are sent a book containing descriptions of frozen meals available plus several order forms. The book contains all the item codes. When retailers order meals they use Taste Delight order forms. They need to include their customer id, item codes and quantities of each item. It is the job of the orders clerk to check the item codes on the order. If any of the item codes are incorrect then the orders clerk gets in touch by phone with the retailer to ask them what they want exactly. The order clerk when satisfied that the order is correct passes this information onto the accounts department.

III. An accounts departments checks that the retailers credit worthiness. Those retailers who have a poor credit rating should pay in advance for orders. Some retailers are allowed a discount on orders. The level of this discount is dependent on the size of the order and the credit history of the particular retailer.

Details of price of order, any pre-payment required and any discounts are posted out to the retailer by the accounts department. All orders are placed in a order tray except for those orders which require a pre-payment that is outstanding which are kept in another file.

IV. When the payment is made by the retailer with poor credit status they are then transferred to the order file.

V. The purchasing clerk looks through the order tray every evening, and raises purchase orders for the ingredients needed. In order to do this they must log their staff id, date and time in a file. All purchase orders are satisfied within a maximum of 7 days.

VI. Each wholesaler sends goods together with a delivery note and invoice to the goods department. This department deals with both the checking of incoming goods from wholesalers and the distribution of frozen meals to the retailers. These meals are sent out with a shipping note and payment request for companies with good credit worthiness.

VII. A signed receipt is returned to Taste Delight Ltd informing that the products have arrived at the retailer.

VIII. Payments made by retailers with good credit worthiness are recorded in a different file to those with poor credit worthiness.

It is decided to introduce a computer system which will take over some of the functions described above.

Problem

Identify activities and they ordering, which will enable the above requirements to be satisfied. Draw an Activity Diagram showing those activities and their ordering.

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