STUDENT MESS MANAGEMENT

SYSTEM
BY

A Project report Submitted to the Department of Computer Science in the Faculty of

Information Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the Award of the Degree in Computer Science Of LPU University.

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 DECLARATION

I declare that this report is my original work and has never been presented in any other university
for an award of degree.

Signed:……………………………………..Date:…………................................……

This report has been submitted for examination with my approval as the university supervisor.

Signed:……………………………………………….Date:……………………………..

(Supervisor)

Faculty of Information Science and Technology

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 ABBREVIATIONS

SMMS – Student Mess Management System.

MMS – Mess Management System.

SMD – Student Mess Department.

DBMS-database management

system

UML-Unified Modeling Language

DFD-Data Flow Diagram

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 ABSTRACT

Student Mess Management System is a combination of systems and processes that enables the
user to easily carry out services to customers without really straining. Many catering
departments, in this case, the mess are choosing the Student Mess Management System to handle
all their customers electronically. Having a great SMMS has numerous benefits. In the end
productive levels tend to increase as a result of choosing the right SMMS. When a catering
department takes care to reduce the manual workload the department performs, they choose to
replace those processes with various levels of SMMS. The staff within the Student Mess
Department either rely on internal Information Technology (IT) experts or third-party vendors to
develop and implement an integrated system. Each module in the system performs a separate
function within the SMMS. In the current system, there is no customer registration. There is also
no immediate report generation and update of information takes longer time; this makes the
record maintenance tedious. The existing system leads to many errors such as data redundancy
and data inconsistency. Keeping this in mind, I will develop a software named Student Mess
Management System (SMMS) which is very user friendly and makes records of data easier than
the current system. The main aim of the project is to develop a Student Mess Management
System for the LPU University Student Mess.

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 Table of Contents
DECLARATION..............................................................................................................................i
DEDICATION...............................................................................................................................iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..............................................................................................................iv
ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................................................................v
ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................vi
CHAPTER ONE..............................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1.1 Background of the study........................................................................................................1
1.2 Problem statement.................................................................................................................2
1.3 Objectives..............................................................................................................................3
1.3.1 General Objectives..........................................................................................................3
1.3.2 Specific Objectives.........................................................................................................3
1.4 Scope.....................................................................................................................................3
1.5 Justification............................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER TWO.............................................................................................................................5
3.1 System analysis and Design tools........................................................................................11
3.1.1 Entity Relationship diagram.........................................................................................12
3.2 System Implementation Tools.............................................................................................12
3.3 System Testing and Validation............................................................................................13
3.3.1 Unit Testing..................................................................................................................13
3.3.2 System Testing.............................................................................................................13
3.3.3 Acceptance Testing.......................................................................................................13
CHAPTER FOUR..........................................................................................................................14
4.0.1 Hardware & Software requirements.............................................................................15

4.1 Context Diagram..................................................................................................................18

4.2 Flow charts...................................................................................................................................19
4.3 Database Design..............................................................................................................20
4.3.1Physical Design.............................................................................................................20
4.3.2 Sample Table................................................................................................................21
CHAPTER FIVE...........................................................................................................................22

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 SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION, TESTING & VALIDATION..............................................22
5.1 Screenshots..........................................................................................................................22
CHAPTER SIX..............................................................................................................................27
6.0 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.......................................27
6.1 SUMMARY.......................................................................................................................27
6.2 CONCLUSIONS...............................................................................................................27
6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS...................................................................................................27

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 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Efficient and effective management of “Capital” has progressed to an increasingly complex

process. The existing system leads to many errors like false money records, data redundancy,
data inconsistency, that wastes valuable time and money when inaccurate money records are
kept. Presently, the Staff Mess Standards of serving customers is quite low. The customer has to
make payments in cash to the cashier before they are served. Almost everything is done
manually. In case of completion of a certain type of food, the cooks and the person giving out the
receipt for food ordered are not able to communicate properly. Stoke management in store is not
very well done. Stoke items are used without a clear knowledge of how they are consumed.
There is no record to show stoke in and stoke out. Staff workers also attend to work without
necessarily signing their attendance to job. According to the Mess Management at IIT Madras,
one of the most massive tasks of the mess is to take care of the dinning needs of its customers.
Here, supervisors have been given specialized task like Accounts-cashier and Purchasing
Manage-acquisition and storekeeping. In the Mess Management System India offered product is
used to manage reservation, keep cleaning list and booking lists and many more in hostels. It also
helps to manage the Payment details, enquiry details, and student details etc. According to
Coresonant, India, Hostel and Mess Management System software customizes and manages the
issues of hostel. Coresonant always focus to provide flexible and powerful Hostel and Mess
Management System to their customers. Offered product is used to manage reservation, keep
cleaning list and booking lists and many more in hostels. It also helps to manage the Payment
details, enquiry details, and student details.

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1.2 Problem statement

Currently, the Student Mess Management System falls short of controlling the financial records
and also payment is done in cash which sometimes leads to money insecurity. Money calculation
and report generation is quite unreliable; it takes so much of time to compose expenditure of all
customers and generate reports concerning the amount of money realized. The current system
also cannot keep track of the stock in store; neither does it prompt the administrator on the
amount of stock left, this may promote theft of stock items in store. Monitoring of employees’
attendance is also an issue that needs to be addressed in the current system, that is some
employees report to work late without the knowledge of the supervisor. This system will help a
great deal in monitoring the employee’s attendance and on time. The other main problem is lack
of proper communication between the person giving out the order receipts and the cooks in the
kitchen. Finally, the current Student Mess Management System lacks customers service history
since there is no platform for customers to register, hence promoting false records. According to
the background information of the Mess Management System, we find that time which is a factor
of production is wasted when there are many customers to be attended to since currently the mess
is managed by only one cashier. The administrator also cannot be able to retrieve information
about a specific customer since the current system does not have a platform from which the
customer can be registered by the admin or he/she to register themselves. In other words, the
Student Mess encompasses a whole lot of problems that need to solved with immediate effects so
as to be on track with the ever changing world of technology

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 1.3 Objectives

1.3.1 General Objectives

The main objective of the study was to develop a system to keep, maintain, retrieve and track
information about the entire Student Mess operations.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

i. To analyze the current system to help derive and understand user specifications and system
specification.
ii. To design a Mess Management System that computerizes the department.
iii. To develop the proposed system according to the user specifications.
iv. To test and validate the proposed system to ensure that all the modules are working correctly
as individual or as integrated.

1.4 Scope

The study used LPU University Student Mess as a case study for the project. This Application
work in Multiple PC’s installed but sharing same database by which users of different
department can use it sitting at different locations simultaneously. The Student Mess
Management System generally provide some combination of customers personal records and
also the employees(staff) records. The system will only cover the Student mess to help in work
efficiency and accuracy to better services offered to customers.

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2.3. The drawbacks/Weaknesses to be solved by the proposed system

The case studies showed that there was still a whole lot of gaps to be filled by the proposed
system. These weaknesses were:

i. Maintenance of records is complicated and its time consuming.

ii. There is no keeping track of stock.
iii. Time unconsciousness by the Student Mess employees since there is no platform for staff
attendance registration and no proper student-cook communication.
iv. Searching and maintaining Customers records is complicated and slow.
v. Payments are insecure since customers pay cash for services.

2.4 Proposed System

The proposed system provides detailed general information about the customers along with
personal details. It enhances the user in adding, viewing and updating customer’s details and
generates various reports regarding customers.

Advantages of the new system

i. The Proposed system helps in the maintenance of clear records on daily, monthly and
even annual basis about consumption. There’s also proper cooks-student communication.
ii. The system keeps track of stock ensuring data consistency, accuracy and even security of
data and money since payment will be via Mpesa.
iii. The proposed system provides a platform for students to book mess services such as
organizing parties and also a platform for presenting their complains.
iv. Students and working staff records are easy and fast to search and maintain since all the
data are safely stored in a database and in an organized manner.
v. The proposed system keeps Staff Mess workers on toes since their attendance is
monitored by the system; hence enhancing time consciousness among workers.
vi. This system can be installed on multiple machine but sharing a centralized database, hence
the customers can even interact with the system by just loging in as a member.
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2.5Summary

The existing system and other related case studies had a whole lot of loop-holes such as

Data insecurity, data inconsistency and inaccuracy, time wastage among others which need to be

filled. All these draw-backs are solved by the proposed system to ensure a conducive working
environment within the Student Mess.

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can contain many tables at once and store thousands of individual records.

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4.0.1 Non-functional requirements

These mainly places constraints on how the proposed system is to perfume its purpose. They
include:

i. It is secure from un-authorized access as well as destructive malwares.

ii. It is highly reliable in provision of the various expected functionalities.
iii. The system provides effective searching capability i.e. for example searching of any
entity’s information.
iv. It has the sending, receiving and autoreplying message capabilities.
v. It is stable to avoid possible breakdowns.
vi. It is also easy to maintain in cases of faults occurrences.

4.0.2 Hardware & Software

requirements Software Requirements

Operating System : Windows7, Windows8, Windows10, Window-XP, Linux or any other

higher version.
Application Software : JAVA Development Kit (JDK), Wamp Server, ireport designer and
JAVA coding platform(Netbeans).

Hardware Requirements

Computer set, that is, CPU, monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Ram : 2GB memory or higher.

Processor : Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium IV or higher; 2GHZ or higher Speed.

Disk Space: 20GB or higher.

Keyboard : Enhanced keyboard.

Printer : Optimal (Colored/black and white).

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4.1 System Design/ Architecture

This new architecture proposed three layers, each running on a

different platform:

i. The user interface layer, which runs on the end-user’s computer.

ii. Data processing layer. This is the middle tier that runs on a server and is usually called

the application server. One application server is designed to serve multiple clients.

iii. A Database Management System(DBMS), which stores the data required by the middle tier

which may run on a separate server called the database server.

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 Constraints.

- GUI is only in English.

- Login and password is used for identification of user and there is no facility

for guest.

ER DIAGRAM

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4.2 Context Diagram

This is a high level diagram that represents all the external entities that may interact with the

system and its main objective is to focus attention on external factors and event that should be

considered in developing a complete set of the systems requirements and constraints.

Student

SYSTEM
Staff

Administrator

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4.3 Flow charts

Start

Enter Username
and Password Log in Again

Correct
authentication?

YES

View main Frame

Registration

Stop

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4.4 Database Design

4.4.1Physical Design

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4.4.2 Sample Table

Student_Details table

Field Name Data Type Null

S_Name Varchar (150) No

F_Name Varchar (150) No
S_Name Varchar (150) No
Reg_No Varchar (150) No
Id_No Int (8) No
Course Varchar (150) No
Faculty Varchar (150) No
Phone_No Varchar (150) No
Email Varchar (150) No
Gender Varchar (6) No
Email Varchar (150) No
D_o_A Varchar (150) No
D_o_G Varchar (150) No
Date Varchar (150) No
Time Varchar (150) Yes
Balance Int (150) Yes
Pswd Varchar (150) Yes

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5.1 Screenshots

Log in Panel

String sql = "INSERT INTO admin_logs (User_Id,Time) VALUES ('" + admin + "','" + timestamp
+ "') ";

String sql = "INSERT INTO staff_log (StaffNo,Time) VALUES ('" + staff + "','" + timestamp +
"') ";

String sql = "INSERT INTO student_log (Reg_No,Time) VALUES ('" + reg + "','" + timestamp
+ "') ";

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Main Frame

Student Registration Panel

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String sql = "INSERT INTO `student_reg`(`S_Name`, `F_Name`, `M_Name`, `Reg_No`, `Id_No`,
`Course`, `Faculty`, `Phone_No`,"

+ " `Email`, `Gender`,`D_o_A`, `D_o_G`, `Date`, `Time`, `Balance`,

`Pswd`)VALUES ('" + snam + "','" + fnam + "','" + mnam + "','" + reg + "',"

+ "'" + id + "','" + cos + "','" + faculty + "','" + phoneNo + "','" + email + "','" + gender
+ "','" + doa + "',"

+ "'" + dog + "','" + date + "','" + time + "','" + balance + "','" + pswd + "')";

Staff Registration Panel

String sql = "INSERT INTO `staff_details`(`Sname`, `Fname`, `Mname`, `StaffNo`, `IdNo`,

`Department`, `PoBox`, `PhoneNo`," + " `Email`, `Gender`,`DoE`, `Supervisor`, `SpvsPhoneNo`,
`Date`, `Time`, `Pswd`)VALUES ('" + snam + "','" + fnam + "','" + mnam + "','" + staffNo + "'," +
"'" + id + "','" + depert + "','" + box + "','" + phoneNo + "','" + email + "','" + gender + "','" + doe +
"'," + "'" + superv + "','" + spvcPhone + "','" + date + "','" + time + "','" + pswd + "')";

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Food Ordering Panel

String sql = "INSERT INTO `records`

(`RegNo`,`Date`,`Time`,`Ugali`,`Rice`,`Chapati`,`Githeri`,`Cabbage`,`Kales`,`Beef`,`Eggs`,`Tea
`,"+"`Ndazi`,`Beans`,`Total`,`Day`,`Month`,`Year`)VALUE('"+regno+"','"+date+"','"+tym+"','"+
ugali+"','"+rice+"','"+chapati+"',"

+
"'"+githeri+"','"+cabbage+"','"+kales+"','"+beef+"','"+eggs+"','"+chai+"','"+ndazi+"','"+beans+"','
"+total+"','"+day+"'," + "'"+month+"','"+year+"')" ;

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Stock in and stock out Panel

Reports sample

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 6.0 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

6.1 SUMMARY

The project has achieved a whole lot of important functionalities making it easier for the
management of the student Mess to run smoothly and more efficiently. Students and staff
(workers) are able to be registered into the system, stock record tracking is done more efficiently,
reports can now be generated in a clearer manner, staff attendance can now be monitored
properly and also the system provides a platform where students can post their complains and
suggestions. Furthermore, students can make payments in advance via M-pesa and also the
system allows confirmatory messages to be sent to the registered students upon services like
registration, money deposition in the student mess account, expenditure and even the balance left
in the account.

6.2 CONCLUSIONS

The main objective has finally been achieved and the system is secure since a user can modify
the information only after proper authentication. It provides a big leap forward over the existing
inefficient system of mess management. Chances of errors are also eliminated to a large extent.
Computerization and automation of the whole system helps in easy and fast access to the
required information. It is highly user friendly as appropriate messages are provided to guide the
user logged in.

6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS

I highly recommend the system for adoption by Kisii University Student Mess since within it

their is a bunch of quality and attractive features that are targeted to overcome the challenges

present in stock and student record collection, storage and retrieval for effective service delivery.

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