1.1 Definition
1.1.1 The Organisation – Benham Sports Arena
Benham Sports Arena is a local sports centre run by Action Centres UK. Action Centres UK was established in 1961 by Harry Whittaker, MBE. Action Centres UK have centres located in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Northamptonshire; Benham Sports Arena, the centre which I am solving the problem for, is located on Moulton Park industrial estate in Northampton.
Benham hosts, and in some cases runs, a number of sporting activities including: roller skating, football, badminton, fencing, squash and basketball. It also can be booked for birthday parties. The arena also has a small café area which serves food and refreshments to the customers, as well as providing food for birthday parties.
They employ five people, as well as having a number of overseas volunteers. Of these five people, there is one general manager, one assistant manager, two duty managers and a receptionist. On average, Benham Sports Arena has 150-200 customers a day.
1.1.2 The Client – Mr David Smith
Mr Smith is a duty manager at Benham Sports Arena. His tasks include setting up the arena for upcoming activities, managing the shifts, monitoring the café area, compiling the end of day accounts and making sure the arena is left secure at the end of the day. In addition to this he, along with the other members of staff, take bookings from customers, usually by phone or in person. These bookings range from squash courts, to the hire of the whole arena for events including exams. There may be several different types of booking at one time as the arena is split into different sections.
1.1.3 Problem Outline
Benham Sports Arena currently uses paper-based records to record bookings made by customers. This system is easy to use and is reasonable efficient but it does have some failings. The main problem with the current system is the layout and presentation of the data. As the system uses a booking form for each day, any queries about bookings in the past, or future, takes time to find, and so information cannot be retrieved quickly and easily. Although quite rare, there is also sometimes a problem with double bookings.
At the moment data is stored in separate locations, so finding data takes time. Only the name and type of booking is stored on the booking form, whilst the customer’s contact details are stored in a diary in the office. This means that the data is reasonably secure, as only employees are allowed in the office, but it does mean that it takes longer than necessary to find the details. If data was stored in a new system, it would need to be secure. The current system also means that duplicates of data may be stored; for example if a repeat or block booking was made, then the customers details would need to be entered for every day they booked.
Benham Sports Arena is already looking into developing a computer-based booking system, and given the volume and nature of the bookings this seems a sensible suggestion. I therefore plan to look into different options to solve this problem and develop a system that is better and more efficient than the current system.