Virtual Booth

Store inventory management in Malaysian government agencies, particularly at district-level operations such as Jabatan Kerja Raya (JKR) Kuala Kangsar, continues to rely heavily on manual, paper-based processes that are inefficient, error-prone, and lacking in financial transparency. Staff are required to submit physical letters to request items from the store, inventory records are maintained in handwritten logbooks, and there exists no centralised mechanism for monitoring stock levels or tracking procurement expenditure. This study presents the development of SiStor, Sistem Pengurusan Stor, a web-based inventory management system designed to digitise and streamline the complete store management lifecycle at JKR Kuala Kangsar. The system was developed using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL, following the Waterfall software development methodology, and is deployed on a local Apache server environment via XAMPP. SiStor implements a three-tier role-based access control model, distinguishing between system administrators, store managers, and general staff, each with distinct system privileges and dedicated interface portals. Core functionalities include real-time stock monitoring with automated low-stock alert notifications, a digital requisition and approval workflow enabling staff to submit item requests online with automatic stock adjustment upon manager approval, a printable formal requisition slip to maintain compliance with government documentation standards, a cost tracking module supporting invoice and receipt document uploads in JPG, PNG, and PDF formats with auto-calculated expenditure totals, and a financial reporting feature generating exportable expenditure summaries for management review. The system database comprises eight normalised relational tables managing entities including users, inventory items, item categories, staff records, stock transactions, requisition records, cost records, and uploaded documents. Benchmarking against five existing systems, Odoo Inventory, inFlow Inventory, Zoho Inventory, SPAK, and manual spreadsheet-based approaches — demonstrates that SiStor uniquely addresses the specific workflow constraints, localisation requirements, and documentation standards of a Malaysian government store unit at no licensing cost. The system is expected to significantly reduce requisition processing time, eliminate manual stock discrepancy errors, and provide management with real-time financial visibility that is currently unavailable under the existing manual system.