Define the Problem: Describe the type of case and what problem(s) or issue(s) should be the focus for your analysis. SchmidtCo, was a family owned, Philadelphia based firm in the business of import and distribution of Automobile replacement parts. It had Annual turn-over of $40Million. It distributed 10,000 SKU of different items having 20 million pieces of shipment in a year. The company had 90 employees distributed in three warehouses. The volume and complexity of its operation made its information system backbone of the operation. SchmidtCo had decided to replace its 18 year old information system infrastructure with state-of-art one. But its project to convert the information system of his auto parts distribution business is in real …show more content…
List any outside concepts that can be applied: Write down any principles, frameworks or theories that can be applied to this case ➢ Urgent need for modern information system: current system is old and obsolete, inadequate and inefficient for current operation and business need. In the meantime, SchmidtCo had increased their volume of inventory and complexity of distribution. They were already late in their decision to upgrade the information system. There was an urgent need for quick modernization of current information system and complete the conversion project as soon as possible. ➢ Delay and budget over run in conversion project: They were already late in this project by three months and were $50,000 over budget as the quality of operations were far below the company 's standards. ➢ Business risk: Further delay and failure to system upgrade may jeopardize its business operation and drive them out of the business as it was the case of one of its …show more content…
He may set up a supervisory team headed by him and comprising Implementation team members, lead from DTech consultants and VP sales of DTech. Run the project in task force mode with stricter task deadlines and monitoring the project everyday basis. John also needs to spend required time for the project. If he cannot do so for valid reason, he should hand over the realm to David. He may explain DTech the win-win situation involved here. Failure of the project would cost SchmidtCo as well DTech as they were new player in the US market. Success of the project would boost their credibility in the US market and act as a reference for DTech’s potential customers ( PM Schmidt
formed project teams to look into issues and make suggestions on how to make it better. The
It is evident that the information system used by Kahuna Cleaning Supply is rather slow and inefficient. The director of sales reports that the business lost a big order recently to the competitor who was able to provide the potential client with timely estimates online. In addition, the system is marred with a lot of errors while making orders and requisitions. The customers are not connected with an online interface and this makes it difficult for the company to compete favorably on the information front. The manual system is therefore obsolete, slow and unprofitable to the company. Therefore, in order to leverage their effectiveness and competitive edge, management seeks do develop a system that incorporates all the functions in a customer friendly interface. In this regard, a study will be undertaken on the current operat...
Spokane Industries has contracted Franklin Electronics for an 18 month product development contract. Franklin Electronics is new to using project management methodologies and have not been exposed to earned value management methodologies. Even though Franklin and Spokane have worked together in the past, they have mainly used fixed price contracts with little to no stipulations. For this project Spokane Industries is requiring Franklin Electronics to use formalized project management methodologies, earned value cost schedules, and schedules for reports and meetings. Since Franklin Electronics had had no experience with earned value management, the cost accounting group was trained in the methodology in order to bid for the project. Franklin Electronics won the contract because they had the lowest price. They developed a work breakdown structure that consisted of 45 work packages with 4 of the work packages being delivered in the first 4 months. They also developed a simple status report consisting of the work packages due, budgeted cost for work scheduled, budgeted cost for work performed, actual cost for work performed, cost variance and price variance. When they deliver the first status report, the Franklin Electronics project manager is called into an emergency meeting because Spokane Industries vice president is unhappy with the progress. In this paper, we will discuss Six Sigma process improvement for tracking time and cost, recommendations on how Franklin Electronics can use project management principles to meet their goal of improving efficiency and empowering management to make better and informed decisions through the use of Earned Value Management, how an effective Earned Value Management System contributes ...
I will use the ideas I got from scholarly literatures to illustrate and expound on the subject matter-
UPS’ core competency is efficient and reliable package delivery. However, over the last two decades, UPS invested heavily in Information Technology to develop its capabilities. With this new technology driven approach UPS managed to integrate UPS and client’s info systems. This business process integration benefitted both by exponentially increasing the business value, also these collaborative Info systems unlocked tremendous potential making UPS the world’s most admired company in the year 2000.
A description of the nature of the problem, including facts relating to such problem; and
In order to effectively identify and justify a research problem, evident practices should be considered. The researchers must clearly identify the problem to be researched. This practice does not simply mean to determine a problem exists but should include why it is a need to study the problem. Identifying a research problem consists of specifying an issue to study, developing a justification for studying it, and suggesting the importance of the study for select audiences that will read the report (Creswell, 2008). The clear identification and justification of a research problem is considered to be a best practice because it limits the subject matter and focus attentions on a specific point of view of the study. This best practice can be applied by clearly identifying the research problem and providing a clear justification to why the research is being conducted. By applying this best practice, a different perspective may be provided, the scope of the research problem may be narrowed, and direction for the research may be rendered.
Before I start making the assignment, I have read the case to get and understanding the big picture or the situation in the case study. After that, I analyse the case first by understanding the content in the case study and think creatively the relation between the case and the topic. Then, I read the case again and actively take notes or underline passages. After that, I discussed with my team to identify the key issues in this case, to know the problem that are related with this case study. After I identify the issues in this case, I and my team member generate possible solutions, think about consequences of various paths of action, and weight the advantages and limitations of solutions.
Part 1: In the first part of this assignment you will write a case study based on your personal organizational experiences. Case studies are written accounts of specific organizational events that can be used to understand problems and issues within an organization. Your case studies should meet the following requirements
Lack of coordination between the project management team causes the project to work at a much slower rate than estimated.
There was a huge and a high pressure government project which had to be completed in a short span of time. It had several teams associated with different
MidSouth Chamber of Commerce is an organization that rely heavily on their information systems. Lassiter, Hedges and Kovecki who has no information technology background were taken into computing operations. Introducing a new system is not an easy task until an organization has senior IT professionals and backup plans. In the end, it was the lack of proper management and lacked intimate knowledge of information systems made them depend on outside persons to make decisions that caused all these problems.
The most significant feature of an investigative study is the precision and simplicity of the investigative problem. For a brief assertion, it definitely has a great deal of influence on the study. The statement of the problem is the central position of the study. The problem statement should affirm what will be studied, whether the study will be completed by means of experimental or non-experimental analysis, and what the reason and function of the results will bring. As an element of the opening, profound problem declarations satisfies the query of why the study should to be performed. The reason of this essay is to discuss the features of an investigative problem; in addition, the essay will center on what constitutes a researchable problem; the components of a well formed Statement of Research Problem; and, what constitutes a reasonable theoretical framework for the need of a study.
Information system can replace the previous manual handling operations to save a lot of time and labor costs.
The last decade can be marked as a period of significant changes in the business world. Being accustomed to utilize computers as a powerful tool with its office applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel. In the 1990s office workers first faced the opportunity to share information using the Internet (McNurlin, 2009). However, the situation became even more different with the transition to the third millennium. With a further development of information technologies, the majority of big enterprises had to reconstitute their business processes and to make the transition to the Internet economy. Enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply-chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM) software and the variety of other information systems became essential components of the new economy. It can be expected, that all these complex solutions were designed to bring great benefits for different sides of the corporate activity, in particular, decisions made by top-managers are expected to become nearer to the ideal, customer service is to be improved and collaboration more prolific. Nevertheless, to ensure the desired results it should be taken into account that the key concept of these reorganizations is an information or a data, dealing with which can be a serious issue, and wide utilizing of the data warehouses in contemporary organizations confirms this fact.