Question regarding design of tables for inventory database

[Guest]

I need to design a database that will track the supplies ordered from a
supplier as well as track these supplies when they a shipped to investigator
sites. I would have a Suppliers table, Product Table, Investigator Sites
Table, I get stuck on whether I should have a tables named Supplier Orders
Table and Supplier Order Details Table as well as Site Order Table and Site
Order Details.

I would really appreciate any help as I'm fairly new to designing databases.

Thank in advance for any help.

Regards,

Dee

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

Dee,

If I understand this correctly, Supplier orders are inbound, while Site
orders are outbound? If that's the case, you definitely need to track
both (in a header/detail two-table structure). In theory you could use
common tables with just a field in the header table to differentiate
between the two, but I would not recommned it. IMHO it's better to use
separate tables, because you may well find, as your development
progresses, that you have different needs in the data recorded for each
type; a classic example is a table of suppliers tied to inbound orders,
while outbound orders are tied to investigator sites (a different table).

HTH,
Nikos