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Selecting a Database for a Small Business Essay

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Jay-Star Incorporated is a small machine shop located in Lexington, Kentucky. There are only seven employees that actually work on the shop floor. Jay-Star produces metal core and distributes that core to various aerospace manufacturers. There are three different types of core that Jay-Star produces: Square Cell, Hexagonal Cell, and Beneflex Cell. Each of them can be produced using different materials from various shipping companies. The employees take these materials from the shipping company, produce the product, and then deliver the finished product to the aerospace manufacturer (customer). For a small company, Jay-Star keeps a very hectic schedule. Any miscalculation on shipping dates could be disastrous for the order …show more content…

The last three tables are probably the most important in the database. The Orders, Product, and Order Line Items tables connect it all together. They show how each customer gets each product, how the product gets there, and when it is supposed to arrive. They also show how much each product costs. The requirements of creating this database are to define the primary keys for each table and to show what order each table should be placed. The primary keys are simple. They are usually the number that defines each row in the table (i.e. EMPLOYEE_ID). It can either be part of the actual record itself , or it can be an artificial field (one that has no meaning other than being an identifier of the record) (Data Analytics Software). The order in which each table is created is based upon their relationships. The Customer, Shipper, and Employee tables all have a one-to-many relationship with the Orders table, so therefore, they are created first. A one-to-many relationship, in this example, is where one customer, shipper, or employee is associated with many orders (Pratt, Last p. 26).

The first step in creating the database was defining each entity. Each entity would represent its own table. The entities that were established were Customer, Shippers, Employees, Orders, and Products. The next step was to determine a unique identifier for each entity. Identifiers, such as personal identification numbers, worker numbers, and license numbers, are used for identifying individual

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