System Request – Internet Inventory & Invoice System

Team Members: Nzingah Gross, Chris Jones, and Babar Mushtaq
Company Name: Texas Pipe and Supply
Spring 2008

Project Sponsor: MikeGilbert, Vice President of the Company

Business Background:Texas Pipe & Supply is a leading Master Distributor of Carbon and Stainless Steel Line Pipe. Headquartered in Houston Texas, TP&S operates seven branch locations strategically located across the U.S.A. The 85-acre Houston facility serves as the company’s re-distribution yard and primary export facility due to its close proximity to the Houston ship channel. Annual seamless shipments in excess of 90,000 tons make Texas Pipe the largest seamless line pipe distributor in the United States.

Business Need: The request was made to provide a database for accumulated business intelligence and transactions, which would facilitate easy updates and retrievals of information. This project has been initiated to track equipment inventory and invoices records.

Business Requirements: Using the Web, the inventory clerks will be able to search a main inventory database and locate parts that are on hand to purchase. The new system will also make it possible for clerks to place orders for customers, retrieve past orders by the invoice number, and also track an existing customer’s credit. Listed below are the following functional requirements that Texas Pipe and Supply have for the new inventory system.

  • Access from any computer with internet capabilities
  • Search through the Texas Pipe and Supply inventory database
  • Place customer orders for customers
  • Keep track of customer information such as address and credit limit

Business Value:

We expect that Texas Pipe and Supply will increase sales by reducing lost paper orders. By implementing an electronic inventory system we also expect to improve customer service by reducing the number of times items are sold as in stock but are really out of stock due to current orders being placed. Another benefit of an electronic inventory is the ability to accurately locate material in the warehouse reducing the number of man hours to locate and ship said material. Less effort will be required to determine credit issues with a customer when our invoicing and payments are kept on a database.

Conservative estimates of tangible value to the company include:

Reduced lose of sales due to human error by $25,000

Reduced man hours costs by $125,000

Reduced losses due to overextending credit by $50,000

Special Issues/Constraints: The new system should be in production by the end of the fiscal year. This system will help improve speed and accuracy of tracking equipment data. The time and resources will be needed to export data from our current system into a usable format for the new system.