Title : Web-Enabled Inventory Management System Using Web Services .

As the internet has grown, the need to share data across web sites, and a variety of backend applications has grown with it . With the variety of web server platforms, database applications, programming languages, and proprietary data management applications, sharing solutions, and more companies rely on the internet as a vessel for data exchange, it becomes obvious that an easy way of enabling this is needed . The solution to enabling Internet-based data exchange is .Net web services .

Through the development of Internet standards such as XML, you have the ability to exchange data in a common format with another application, even when the two applications run on different systems, running different applications, written in different languages, using different data storage applications . Much like HTTP provided a standard protocol by which a browser and a web server could interact, and HTML provided a standard presentation mark-up format for documents, XML provides a standard data exchange format that can be used by a variety of disparate systems .

Web services are pieces of programming logic that provide fuctionality to a variety of ptentially disparate systems through the use of Internet standards . These pieces of logic can include such things as mathematical calculations, data look-up logic, authorization services virtually any type of programming function you can think of . Through the use of Internet standards like XML and SOAP, your web services can be used by any number of disparate systems, or locally by your own applications .

An Inventory Management System enables you to record movements in inventory . Inventory movements are of two basic types : movements inward and movements outward . Inventory purchases and returns from customers or from the shop floor (in the case of manufacturing companies) are examples of movements inward whereas sales, returns to suppliers, or issues to the shop floor (in the case of manufacturing companies) are examples of movements outward .

Good inventory management is one of the most essential functions in an organization . Effective inventory management entails maintaining just the right inventory balance in stock because overstocking can tie up scarce working capital in inventory, and under-stocking can lead to lost sales . The Inventory Management System provides management data pertaining to movements of inventory and stock balances at any given time .

Traditionally, Inventory Management Systems have been client/server-based . We will use web services and ASP.Net to develop a Web-based Inventory Management System . My goal in this project is to demonstrate practically how traditional client/server products could be revamped for the web using SOAP, web services, and the tools provided by ASP.Net .