DESIGN AN IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTER BASED SEAPORT BILLING SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN PORT AUTHORITY LAGOS). A RESEARCH PROJECT MATERIAL ON COMPUTER SCIENCE
ABSTRACT
Handling of cargo has been a circular task all these while in our various ports. And Nigerian Ports Authority (N.P.A) being an organization responsible for seeing to the affairs of our various sea ports in Nigeria, have worked endlessly to make sure cargoes are properly handled without much complain of damage or misplacement.
To ease the operation of cargo handling in our sea ports, researcher took up this study by critically understanding the work, procedure involved, analysis of the various steps and at the same time detecting problem in the present system and designing a new system that has solution to the problem of the existing system.
The new design is computerized and is subject to modification at any given time. It also have this interaction feature and accurate in it’s output.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria Ports Authority is a government owned organization under the supervision of the federal Ministry of transport with responsibility of providing specific ports and labor services for the country’s meantime industry.
One of their numerous duties and major functions is the provision of Cargo Handling Quays facilities. Right from the inception of this company, the billing system has been manually processed. The port complex is in the early stage of computerization and the manual method of preparing customers’ bills are delayed.
A computer-based billing system is necessary for handling and preparing of accurate bills for customers. The new system will facilitate the prompt preparation of bills, easy retrieval of information, security to vital information and resource sharing among the billing department.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY:
Once Port complex is located near Port Harcourt, Rivers State of Nigeria, the port is a natural port and was established about twenty years ago, firstly with the construction and commissioning of the Federal Lighter Terminal (FLT) in 1982 and later the Federal Ocean Terminal (FOT) in 1996.
These two terminals handle lighter (smaller) vessels and ocean-going vessels respectively. The average draught of FLT is about 5.7m while that of FOT is about 13.0m being the cheapest in the West and Central African sub-region. In this regard, the FOT is envisaged to be attiacting more cargo ship and traffic not only as a transit but also as a transshipment center in the sub-region. It however did not have any mechanical handling equipment for billing.