PURPOSE OF THESE FACTS :-
These FACTS define business requirements which the Database must support.
They form the basis for agreement between the User and the Database Designer and are
written in a form of structured English which is clear and unambiguous.
The Draft FACTS have been defined and are detailed below.
A. The Area being Modelled is :-
Product Manufacture and Servicing.
Business Rules ...
A. Scope :-
A company that sells, distributes and services a single product line of machines.
B. Things of Interest :-
1. Companies
2. Customers
3. Distributors
4. End-Users
5. Machines
6. Services
C. What do we know about the Things of Interest :-
1. A Machine is sold to a Customer by a Distributor.
2. Customers include Parent Corporations (such as Starbucks), end-users (individual companies or store locations, distributors, or individuals.
3. There are several types of Service (warranty, non-warranty, service, upgrade/recall).
4. Services are performed on a Machine by a Service Vendor.
5. A Service Vendor may also be a Distributor or vice-versa. Either one could also be a Customer.
6. A Company has both a Billing and Shipping address for each Company.
7. A Machine will have an installation location.
D. Questions :-
1. One company can serve multiple roles, so should there be a Supertype "Company" to avoid multiple billing & shipping addresses for each company?
2. How should this supertype be implemented ?
3. Since a single valued discriminator won't work, can we use attributes like 'Is_Customer', 'Is_Vendor', 'Is_Distributor', 'Parent_CorpID' ?
E. Sample Data includes :-
1. To be determined
F. Typical Enquiries include :-
1. To be determined.
Barry Williams
Principal Consultant
Database Answers
1st. Febuary 2001
