MARCHON EYEWEAR, INC.8 is a large, privately owned producer and distributor of eyewear and sunwear. While it is headquartered in New York, M.E Inc. has opened several sites throughout the world over the years. The following narrative corresponds to the three major business processes in the customer services and inventory control departments at M.E Inc. Canadas head-office located in Montreal.

1. Process Customer Orders

When a customer calls M.E. Inc. to inquire about products to purchase, a two-step process is performed; first customer status is verified and order is created, then order availability is verified and order

is filled. A sequence of tasks are completed to verify the customer status and his/her credit history before creating the order. First, a recorded message states Please list your order first, and then if you are a returning customer, please state your customer number; if you are a new customer please state your name, phone number, and address. A customer service representative will immediately respond to you. When the response from a new customer is received, a customer service representative (CSR) immediately assigns a customer number and records the customers details in the file for customers. The CSR then proceeds to creating the order. When the customer number is received from a returning customer, a CSR checks customers credit by searching the customers file to see if this customer has any past due bills. If the customer does have unpaid bills, the CSR rejects the order, sends a note to the accounting department about the customers unacceptable credit history, and notifies the customer about the rejection of the order. The CSR then proceeds to creating the order. For both new and current customers, the CSR creates the invoice and stores it with other invoices for unfilled orders.

In order to fill the order, when a picker has time, s/he verifies if the ordered product(s) on the invoice are currently in stock. If all of the ordered products are in stock, the order is ready to be filled. Immediately, a shipping invoice is created and stored with other shipping invoices. The original invoice is now removed from storage. When a shipping clerk has time, s/he creates a shipping label by referring to the shipping invoice. Immediately, s/he prints a copy of the shipping invoice, marks the shipping order shipped, and attaches it to the product(s) s/he removes from the stock, and ships both to the customer.

If even one of the items is not in stock, first the picker checks the returned goods and received supplier invoices files to find out if the missing product(s) will be available soon. If the product(s) are not found in either storage, the picker records the missing item(s) in the backorders file and notifies the customer.

2. Process Purchases

Periodically, listing of in-stock products and those that are on backorder are sent to M.E Inc.s headquarter in New York where it is decided whether the inventory is sufficient or not. As needed, M.E Inc. headquarter in New York places an order with the appropriate supplier(s) and sends a copy of the purchase order to M.E Inc. in Montreal where it is stored with other purchase orders. The order is shipped directly from the supplier to M.E Inc.s warehouse.

Once the company receives the ordered items accompanied by the invoice from the supplier, a warehouse employee immediately verifies the received order by comparing the invoice and products received to the purchase orders. If the order is not correct, the incorrect products are sent back to the supplier along with the invoice. The correct products are placed in storage. And a note is placed in the purchase order that it is to be completed when the supplier corrects the order. If, on the other hand, the order is verified, the invoice is stored with the other supplier invoices and products are placed in storage.

3. Process Returned Goods

When a customer returns an unwanted, a warehouse employee writes a note about the required repair and stores it with other returned products. Over the course of the next few days, the returned product and the note are sent to the repair department to be checked, repaired, and sent back (note that the repair task is not within the scope of the system described in this narrative). When the repair department returns the repaired product, it is placed in storage with other products. The details of the repaired products are sent to the accounting department for processing.

• a) Draw a diagram for each of the subsystems separately and independently of the others

• b) Draw the DFD hierarchy (context level, level-0, level-1 diagrams, and level-2 diagrams as needed)