Data Mining and Warehousing 2

Your supervisor at Moonlight Distributors has asked you to begin thinking about the database that you will be creating. Your supervisor requested a short memo identifying each of the five Ws and the H (who, what, where, when, why, and how) of the database as well as how each could influence the design of the logical database model.

Moonlight Distributors is a 10-year-old transportation firm that specializes in pickups from and deliveries to a wide range of businesses. There is a corporate office in Chicago, IL, and there are 3 regional offices in Pittsburgh, PA; Omaha, OK; and San Francisco, CA.

Diane, the CEO, has been seeing sales and profits slip for the past 3 years. Tony from billing says that the problem lies in getting accurate and timely information from the regional offices. Because of all the paperwork involved, the three regional managers complain that they cannot get the information to Tony any faster.

Every shipment (about 10,000 per month per region) requires a pickup document with the shipper information, a description of the goods to be shipped, where the goods are going, and who is paying the freight. Once the pickup is made and brought back to the terminal, the goods need to be checked against the manifest and then set up for delivery. Once the drivers come back from the delivery route, they fill out delivery documentation including when the goods were signed for.

You are the IT director for Moonlight, and you have been ordered by Diane to create a system that would reduce the overhead at the regional terminals. You suggest putting in a distributed computer system and having computers at each of the regional offices and at corporate headquarters. You created a conceptual design for the shipping information system and will eventually link it to the billing, finance, and marketing systems.

Some of the information that is needed includes the following:

    status of every pickup and delivery
    weekly reports on on-time delivery
    a monthly report on new customers, profitability, and market share gains and losses
    the number of new customers
    the delivery volume and charges
    number of problems such as late delivery, damage delivery, and refused shipments that cut into profits

Compose an e-mail to your supervisor.

Assignment Guidelines

    Using the information in the assignment description, determine the who, what, when, where, why, and how of this business needs scenario.
    Create an e-mail to your supervisor explaining these various elements.
    Post a new topic to the Discussion Board that contains your e-mail.