Development of 2D barcode audit trail and database model system for landscape nursery management

Abstract

In the past, landscape nursery management as well as maintenance of plants has always been neglected and as such, emphasis should be given so that plants will always remain attractive. Basically, landscape nursery management and maintenance will focus on the management of human resources, choice of plant species and plant care concerning mulching, staking, weeding, irrigation, fertilizing, pruning, pest and disease control. Landscape nursery plants inventory, maintenance and management, will be made much easier if all those problems are maintained within one efficient and cost-effective integrated system. Therefore, there is a need to change the strategies in the landscape nursery management system to satisfy the needs of the more technologically advanced market. To put these strategies into reality, this research aimed to develop fully computerized audit trail and database model system for Landscape Nursery Management using 2D barcode to enable real-time monitoring and recording of landscape maintenance and management activities. The system will also enable monitoring of the human resources management as well as indexing plants for landscape inventory purpose. Sasapadu Nursery (Nilai, Negeri Sembilan) and Tien Cheng Nursery (Muar, Johor) were selected as the site studies to develop the system. The data on both nurseries components such as nursery spatial organization and built-up areas, plant inventories and human resources were collected and established. Consequently, a prototype version of model system was tested to view on default operation system. As a result, a model system was created to improve the audit trail and database upon landscape nursery management. In this system, from supplier to end customer, we can trace all the operation activities. Anticipated benefit from this research is a new kind of barcode that we refer to as 3D barcode can be developed. It encodes data in three dimensions: width, height and color. It can be printed on paper as well as displayed on screens of mobile or spatial devices. On top of that, for future research, one of the most promising new urban tree and nursery management techniques is the development of integrated landscape management system using barcode and RFID technology