1.1 Introduction
A salon management system is a website that manages the appointment scheduling functionality. This system connects users and Salon in an online platform where user can browse salon and their services. Users can also write and read reviews of the salon and its management. Salon management system helps the industry to fill this void in such a way that is on-demand, easy to use, and effective. The final product will be a functioning web application that can handle use cases like user account registration, login/logout, appointment scheduling, writing, and reading review for specific salon. This system provides the user with the saloon details, their images, rates, services, and even portal for customers' feedback where people can voice their opinions regarding the experience, at a particular saloon. It also provides salon search and discovers various services. It provides its customers a platform to evaluate choices for a great salon for grooming.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The 21st century is said to be century of inventions, century of development, century of globalization because no one can end up the day without using any kind of embedded system products. It makes human life very smarter and to feel comfortable. Being a salon client today is inconvenient. The customer have to remember that the customer need to make an appointment, then hope he or she remember during business hours, and finally scramble to find the phone number and take time out of his or her busy day to make the call. And never mind finding user reviews of local salons, tracking those down somewhere on the web is a headache that most don't even attempt.
This is the experience of countless salon-visitors every day. As traditional methods of hair salon are inefficient, therefore proposed system is known as “smart hair salon management system” is considered here. The proposed system is based on embedded system. In this system, first the customer messages or call to the salon then worker at the salon accepts this message or call. Worker first calculates how many customers are waiting as well as predefined time for particular activity to give reply of that message. When the customer comes in particular given time, worker give service to it according to their demand. Similarly, the process is continues and queue is formed based on the functions.
The traditional system of hair salon was manual and insecure because there was no any counting system of customers coming in the salon which creates sometimes major issues. The customer as well as the owner faces the problems (Yonan, 2009). These early systems are dependent on paper- pencil systems for billing purpose that means the records of bills of customer and the workers working in their salon are in written form. The records may get wrong due to anyone's mistake. There is difficulty in maintaining records of all these tasks manually. Hence, proposed system is the best solution of avoiding all these problems. Salon manager are often responsible scheduling staff members, training new front desk workers (Nevonprojects, 2021). Since salon is a service sector, so the success of hair salon depends on the satisfaction of customer. The business of salon is totally dependent on customer satisfaction.
1.3 Statement of Problem
The problem which is being faced with the ongoing salon management process is that it requires quite a lot of manual and paperwork. People wait a lot in queue for his/her turn but our website is probably based on reducing that problem, as the students/peoples will be able to directly made an appointment in their favorite salon and manage their appointment according to their convenient.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to Design and Implement an Online Salon Management System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:
- Convert the manual process of salon management into an online platform with mobile app support.
- Hassle free accounting and inventory management system for salon.
- Provide a user-friendly environment for the management of salon and its customers.
- Provide and generate timely and accurate reports.
- Provide a better searching facility for the management and customers.
- Organize and secure the records in proper implementation and design of the database.
1.5 Significance of Study
The relevance of the proposed research work will be beneficial to the following;
- Management of the salon: with the implementation of this platform, it is believed that it will enhance the business process of salon, it will also somehow a way to promote its business in digital world.
- Employees of salon: employees of the salon can also be the beneficiary of this study because with the use of this system they will no longer record the transactions manually and rest assured that the records will be safe and accurate.
- Customers and clients: news, promos, updates and setting of appointment is one click away. The project will also be available in mobile devices which mean that the implementation it is very convenient on the part of the customers.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of an Online Salon Management System. It is limited towards the hassle free appointment scheduling, automated computation of billing and reports generation and Inventory Tracking and Management
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Web Site: A website is a collection of many interconnected web pages organized by a specific college, organization company etc., containing web pages (good and commodities) on the Internet. Web site is stored on web servers. There are many web site and thousands of HTML pages on each web site.
Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are highlighted words and phrase you find on web documents that you can click on as to jump to some other documents or Internet services. (Clex 1990)
Offline: Disconnected from computer network; describes a computer terminal or peripheral device disconnected from a computer network. (Wikipedia 2011)
System: Set of computer components that is, an assembling of hardware, software and peripherals functioning together. (Fans 2011)
Automation: This is the use of control system such as computer to control and process data, reducing the need for human intervention.
Database: This refers to a large store of related data on a computer that can be accessed and modified by the user.
Record: Is a document made or received in the course of a practical activity as an instrument or a by-product of such activity, and set aside for action or reference.
Password Protected: This is a secret code that a user must type into a computer to enable him access it or its applications. This is composed of numbers, letter, special character or a combination of any of the above categories.
Receipt: A piece of written note that attests to a payment made to one another caring the amount paid and balance if incurred usually signed by both party or one end.
