Project Title Supermarket Saver free essay sample

Project Proposal Team Members: Primary contact: Wei-Chi (Diana) Chen, email: [emailprotected] edu Christopher Chang, email: [emailprotected] edu Arthur Soroken, email: [emailprotected] edu Christine Garcia: [emailprotected] edu Overview: In todays fast-paced economy, where 24-hour service is an essential commodity, the technology explosion and the global marketplace have fueled a frenetic work place in which the recognition of the stay-at- home mom is a luxury too few of families can afford. Time is of the essence, a rare need that is spread thin between work, play and family. Thats why our project focuses on a product that will be embraced by the time-savvy and the price-aware consumer. We call it the Supermarket Saver. With little time to shop and little time to compare prices at different local grocery stores, consumers will be able to push a button on their PDA, or device of choice, and download a price comparison list of products they initially listed on the device. We will write a custom essay sample on Project Title: Supermarket Saver or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Armed with this information, they’ll be able to choose which supermarket is right for them. Motivations and Challenges: The amount of supermarkets to choose from can be daunting. Location is not the only factor. Once there, consumers must wade through a myriad of products, brands, and prices, hoping that the product they need will be in stock. A lot of time is wasted. The importance of this problem can not be trivialized. Right now, supermarkets post their specials/sales on flyers and on websites. Our device takes it one step further. The PDA queries a database and matches their grocery list to items in participating stores. They’ll know where to go and what stores offer the best prices. This saves the consumer much needed time and gives participating supermarkets an edge over the competition. During our research, we found a similar project being developed at Georgia Tech called iShop. Their prototype device is a PDA which displays a map of the supermarket and the fastest route to the product on their grocery list. There is also a ‘Specia ls’ button which lists the specials/sales of the day. The device is store specific and only works within that store. The consumer might save time once inside the store, but has no means of price comparison or product listing before arriving. On the other hand, our device gives the consumer several supermarkets to choose from and a price listing beforehand. Main Technical Ideas/Challenges: With a list of merchandise at hand, we are going to use the PlaceLab environment plus a GPS device to locate positions of supermarkets in a sma ll vicinity. When our PDA detects the supermarkets access point signal, we will then use the supermarkets AP ID number to first query a database to find out which store we are focusing on. From there, the program will calculate the price of the products that we have initially entered in the PDA. Next, this price will be compared to a table in the database that stores all supermarkets products and costs so that we as consumers can make the smart decision to shop smarter. If this project is to be developed and implemented in real world applications, it is very crucial that we construct a database that is local and pertinent to all supermarkets willing to adopt this technology. Even though in our simulation we will only be concerned with a selected few grocery stores and products, it is important that we have one database that stores all the information, including price and products list, of the supermarkets for price comparison purposes. Milestones and Dates: Database setup Data input 05/06/05 Application interface (query data) 05/11/05 Application development 05/18/05 Finished testing 06/06/05 Resources Needed: None at this time. 😉