i have a scenario where i need to know what are the entities it has. i found 5 entities.
1- Company
2- Customer
3- Package
4- Shipment
5- Staff

I have been told that the company is not an entity. is it true here in this scenario? it says that the entities must have more than one instance. can somebody finds me the correct entities here.

Scenario
An international courier, express and parcel Services Company is setting up a package shipping system for customers to ship packages. Whenever a customer wishes to ship a package, they can call the company’s customer service personnel to place a shipment request.
A computer system is needed to track the shipment details of the package. This will enable the company to keep track of their customer’s details, shipment details and to schedule a pick-up of the shipment.

When a customer calls in to place a request for a shipment, the customer’s details, the company’s details (where applicable), the type of shipment request and the estimated cost of shipment are logged into the system by the customer service personnel. The courier company provides express delivery of packages by air, road, rail or ocean and allows customers to track the movement of the package. Each mode of delivery has a variety of services such as:
• Day-specific, door-to-door delivery
• Fast delivery services
• Low cost delivery services
• Handling of dangerous, fragile and temperature sensitive packages
• Easy availability world wide
When the customer calls to place a request, the customer service personnel will provide several delivery options along with its cost. The system will maintain a log of the delivery options and its associated costs. Once the customer has decided on the delivery option, the shipment details are confirmed and the customer service personnel creates a log in the system if a pick-up service of the package is requested. The date, time and location to pick-up the package is also logged into the system in order for the logistics department to access the pick-up information.

Once the package has been picked-up from the customer or delivered to the company, a package tracking number is assigned to each package in order for customers to track the movement of the package. The handling team uses a tracking device to scan the barcode on the package at each location from the source to the intended destination of the package. Upon scanning the barcode, the shipment details are displayed and the handling team is able to update the system with the current location of the package and the condition of the package.
Once the package has been delivered to the requested destination, the recipient of the package will sign the delivery note to confirm receipt of the package. The recipient’s signature will be scanned into the system as proof to the customer of the receipt of the package. The delivery details will also be logged into the system.

Hello

Yes, company is not an entity. Your explanation is correct. If your application is to manage many such parcel-service companies, it were a multi-client software (like SAP R/3).

There are further entities I have found at a first glance:

- Delivery_options and conditions
- Serice_stations, especially where packages are being tracked
- Package_Movement (locations, timestamp, conditions)
- Delivery_details (including recipient's confirmation)

You could draw and post in an ERD (nice tool is freeware visual paradigm) so one can examine its completeness and correct relationships.

-- tesu

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