Work Order & Inventory Design

I am the tech guy at an elementary school. A few years ago when I got this
position, I decided to track the work I did in a database. I had never kept
a database previously, so everything I have done has been self-taught. In
the past few years I have tweaked the Access database to meet my needs.
Presently, all works and meets my needs. I keep thinking, however, that
there is more that my database can do to help me. So, I am taking a fresh
look at how I do things and am going to tinker (with a test database) with
some modifications. I have a book, Access 2003 Bible. I have read through
this a couple times, but have decided to begin once again.

The book and some things I have read online emphasize spending time on
design prior to implementation. That makes sense and that is where I am now.

My database in its simplest form consists of three tables:
Computers: the details about each system (name, hard drive, model, RAM,
processor, etc.)
Component Names: a master list of all names of the computers, but also the
digital telephones, overhead projectors, DVD players, VCRS, etc.)
Work Orders: the details about each tech work order (component name, who
requested the work [linked to another database], work requested, etc.)

Obviously, the component name is an important field in my database. Would
you design a similar database in this fashion?

The database is mounted on an intranet I administer. Staff submit work
orders via a web page that writes directly to the database. One problem I
have found is that if the component name or employee e-mail address (used to
note who is requesting the work) is incorrect, I have no mechanism to
auto-correct it. I have to manually correct it. From what I can discern,
there is not a simple way of validating the data via a web page (I have
Office 2003, no Cold Fusion).

As I have been laying out the fields I keep and looking over the
relationships of the database, I considered breaking up the computers table
into a few different tables. One would contain just the physical components
of the computer (hard drive, RAM, processor, etc.). Now I am having a debate
with myself about how to accomodate the OS. Is that part of the computer?
What happens when I upgrade a system? Am I going to change this field or
have another field that indicates what OS is currently on the system? The
debate makes me think that I should add the purchase orders for each system
to the database too. Arrghhh . . . thoughts?

One of the things I feel the database could do a better job for me is with
inventory. Presently, I verify the data in the computers table when I
complete inventory. It seems to me that there is something else I could do.
What, I am not certain.

To add a little more, I have tables for each kind of technology component
(computers, DVDs, VCRs, telephones, etc.). Each component has different
fields so it doesn't seem logical to have one master component table. For
inventory I have not determined the best manner to lay out the data. Should
I display it by component, the classroom the components are physically in, or
something else?

Believe it or not, inventory is not a requirement of my job. But I feel
that with all that we spend on this equipment, I should be able to account
for it. I am looking for this database to assist in that.

I appreciate your thoughts on this. While I have learned a lot about Access
in the past three years, I think I do not truly know what it is capable of
doing. I do not have other databases to look at to see different functions
implemented.