Enterprise System Design And Development
Introduction
A medium size company in the given business case study is a manufacturer that supplies a variety of sizes and types of aerosol cans for a wide range of customers. This company does the management of the raw material components mechanically. Now the update of the stocks is done on the weekly basis on the average basis. Now in this kind of management, when the order is being given to the vendors to the vendors, since the stocks are being reviewed on the weekly basis, since the consolidation of all the components is being done on the weekly basis so order for each stock is reviewed and if the stock is below the customer order level, then it is being ordered. Now in this kind of cases the company management is slow in placing order. (Mabert, Soni & Venkataramanan, 2001)Now if there is a common database which is being shared by the vendors and the company as well, which keeps tracks of the components? So there are possible solutions in which company keep updating the database on daily basis and when the stock is below certain, they can place the order on daily basis to the vendor or the vendor can himself take the order if the important component stock goes beyond the certain level in the inventory. The problem with the company management is that there are three thousand different components in the inventory, and it is very difficult to manage the 3000 components stock manually on the daily basis. The company has tried to cope up with the problem when it receives the ordered supplies of components on a daily basis. These are recorded by the company purchasing manager on paper and stored in folders representing different types of components. The amount for each component is aggregated on a weekly basis, and an update of recorded stock is produced. But the problem is for the program manager, to compile the weekly data and then analyze and then give the order to produces a schedule of batches to produce for the day based on availability of stock and due date. These are then recorded in a different sheet so that these are subtracted from the aggregated stock values. So we intend to propose a solution which an Enterprise resource planning in which the program manager will place all the data regarding the stocks available for each of the component, any component stock is being used from the inventory must be subtracted from the component stock in the database. Now if this kind of information is available in an instant, the program manager is relief from the responsibility of consolidating the weekly data and then taking the decision for the customer to place the order for the components required to the vendor or not. So here problems are like database need to be updated by some person on event instant basis who can be trusted which will help in flow of the inventory components information and help the program manager to take the decision accurately on the customer order on case by case basis instantaneously using Enterprise resource planning Solution. (Mabert, Soni & Venkataramanan, 2001)
Review
Enterprise resource planning solutions are available in the market which helps the business to make their business integration easy and helps in making the business decision making easier. These kinds of solutions helps in standardisation of processes for the organisation, helps in minimizing the change management implications, helps in the integration of different business modules. A very practical case is for large organisations like in Information (Davenport, 2000) Technology sector uses ERP solutions which are known as ITIL or also Information Technology Infrastructure Library. These kind of applications helps in integration of the business modules easily. There are companies or organisations which has large modules or business departments which access the same service components and the database in such a situation it is being required that helps the company to make critical decision on the top management level easily and accurately.
The academics point of view the research project is being run by the Universities for understanding the Supply Chain Management process. The idea of these kind of Supply Chain Management helps the Universities to publish the research papers such that these are based on the practical use cases of different organisations, which helps the organisations to build the skilled labour force which are experienced in ERP and SCM solutions. It helps the companies to have a skilled man power which helps them in building the organisation (Davenport, 2000) successfully, helps in proper integration of the different business modules. A very practical example of the implementation is in case of supply chain management solution adopted by companies like Coca Cola. Now Coca Cola has a plant where it is being manufactured inside the plant and coke is being bottled in the bottles. Now there are small vendor shops which are whole sale distributors. They can order for the cokes in batches through some web based application or the company will automatically supply the batch of cokes if the whole sale vendor stock goes beyond some minimum stocks. The advantage of this kind of system is that whole of the system is automated and it helps in reducing the management work and the paper work as well. The advantage of such a system also that the account department can function independently because, they don’t have to depend on the technical or the marketing staff, for the data for every financial transaction which has been made. It also helps the organisation to act as a quick reaction force in which they can react to customer demand or queries instantaneously. The supply chain management are being developed are based on trust issue. To one it does not look a big issue but here can be possibilities when the database is being updated by one or two person. The update of the database by these two people is very critical for the proper functioning of the ERP solution which plays an important role. Now in these kind of situation whole of the organisation is completely dependent on these two people because they plays a very critical role in updating the database. Now any error by these two person in updating the database can result in incorrect flow of information throughout the system which will result in wrong analysis of information as the data itself is incorrect. So the implementation of successful ERP solution which helps in bringing the integration of whole of the business organisation together helps in making decision making easier and without error prone but it also depends on things like trust. Once the solution is successfully implemented it also helps in increasing trust with the customers as well. (Van & Waarts, 2000) The increase in customer trust helps the organisation to keep the loyalty of their customer to the organisation. It helps in getting the order from the customer in long term once the confidence of the customer is being won. Other point being it also helps in bringing the efficiency in the organisation given the huge structure of the organisation, it helps in bringing efficiency in terms of working of the employees which helps them in taking the decision easily. It helps the organisation in building the processes which are standard which makes the day to day working of the organisation more of process oriented, and very systematic. It helps the organisation grow because from their the organisation can think how to implement new processes or improve the existing processes in order to increase the efficiency and the through put of the organisation. Standardisation of processes like keeping record of any financial transaction taking place, taking customer orders, or delivering the customer order, doing the inventory management using ERP solution which is part of the supply chain management makes the organisation more of process oriented, more organised, giving a touch of having particular charm of working style. It is this kind of environment helps in providing new skills to the employees, helps them acquire and horn new skills as well. The typical example of such an organisation is Hewlett Packard where the inventory management of the printers and the desktops is being done using ERP solution. The backup service is being provided to the customer for any spare part when there is any physical damage to the equipment, by contacting the components inventory using these ERP solutions only. The use of the ERP solution has made it very easy for the organisation to take the order from any part of the world and the deliver the customer the (Van & Waarts, 2000) require product within a specified period of time. These are special organisation like SAP which are working in this field to provide automated solution like ERP for any kind of organisation. These solutions are now integral and necessary part of any large organisation which intend to cater large customer base easily. It is imperative for the organisation having large customer base to employ these kind of solutions because it helps growing faster, not to concentrate on the internal problems of the organisation management but to focused on more on customer requirements with more organisation resources in focused manner.
Analysis
In the given use case the company which is a medium size company is facing issues like inventory components management, making plans as per the inventory stocks every day, placing order to the vendors for the components depending on the order from the customer and the stock for the component as well. There is an issue with the time period, they have got 6 weeks to fulfil the order but it takes 4 weeks for vendor to get the components to the factory site so there is only 2 weeks left with full time period to fulfil the customer requirements. Now if any error is there in late placing the order with the vendor then this time gap of 2 weeks keep reducing which means more work on per day basis to fulfil the customer order. So here we think A SAP based ITIL solution will really be productive. (Edwards, Peters & Sharman, 2001) These are web based solutions which has three tier architectures. These solutions are based on MVC architecture, MVC is a model view controller architecture. This kind of architecture has view part which is made of JSP and SERVLET which forms the front of the ERP – SAP solutions. The middle part is the model layer which contains the data, actually it is this layer which interacts with the databases like MYSQL etc. The central layer is the controller layer which interacts with the View and the Model layer which contains the business logic and displays the information to the user as per the requirements. Now in the ERP-SAP solutions the user has the freedom to watch the information in the form of charts as well under different scenarios. The information from the database is being filtered and then business processing logic is being done and then it being presented to the user. In these kind of applications which are known as ERP SAP solutions, everything depends on how much accurate is your database. The more the accurate your database, the better is the analysis results and better information is available for the programming manager to take accurate decisions. Now if there is any error in the database information being stored then, the (Edwards, Peters & Sharman, 2001) information being displayed to the user is not correct and then decision taken by the program manager are also error prone. In the current case study the above discussion applies perfectly well, in which we have a situation where the people like program manager are facing problems due to not availability of updated information, if some means is being provided like some ERP SAP solution like ITIL then it can help them in taking the decision accurately, fast and timely also without wasting any time. In this business case study the it is required that program manager to decide which components to be used on the daily basis for the production of fixed sized batches of tin canes and simultaneously update the stock for the remaining batches need to be prepared in order to complete the customer order. (Edwards, Peters & Sharman, 2001)
The information from the customer order can be entered by the sales people in terms of number of components being required for the given order. Then the inventory manager can update simultaneously the number of amount of each component which are present in the inventory for each of 3000 components. Now here is a Program Manager, who has the responsibility to analyze the two information and given the order for the production of (Tarn, 2002) number of units as per customer requirement. Now in all this process the flow of information from the customer to sales and sales to program manager plays an important in one thread and in second thread the information of components stock need to updated and that information should be accurate enough in order to enable the program manager to take the daily decision in accurate fashion. The thread of information flows from the vendor to the inventory manager who need to update the inventory stock if any particular stock of component arrives in the inventory. The fourth thread of information flow is from the program manager to the vendor for placing the order for the number of components in order to fulfil the customer order. Now this is a very interesting use case information flow in which the information flows from each of the actor helps the main actor to take decision but there is further information flow from the program manager to the vendor which helps in taking the decision further. So in all a new process gets developed by the use of some business (Tarn, 2002)application which seems to help the organisation to take the decision quick enough. Now in all this process of information flow we need to understand all the actor including the customer, inventory manager, program manager and vendors as well need o enter the correct and accurate data into the database on regularly fashion such as it helps in building an organisation as well which more integrated, gives rise to team which is more closely working with each other than ever before. The advantage of this kind of system is that whole of the system is automated and it helps in reducing the management work and the paper work as well. The advantage of such a system also that the account department can function (Davenport, 2000) independently because, they don’t have to depend on the technical or the marketing staff, for the data for every financial transaction which has been made. It can be seen that the medium sized organisation is facing lot of problems due to management of correct inventory stock information, and we can see that it is all about information flow which should be correct and consistent in nature and this can be easily fixed by ERP SAP solution which is an enterprise solution for such medium sized organisation to fix their problems. The best part of using these solutions is that it helps the organisation in making there processes more standardised and it helps the organisation use more of their resources on the customer requirements then solving the these internal problems of the company.
Solution
In the given business case study we think a perfect Enterprise Resource Planning Solution will be a perfect application which will be web based in nature in order to fix the problem of this medium size company. Currently the organisation if facing problems like inventory components management, making plans as per the inventory stocks every day, placing order to the vendors for the components depending on the order from the customer and the stock for the component as well. Now a scenario need to be created in which there is some central database which keeps getting update with regular period of time and there are actors which do this responsibility and there are certain actors who has the responsibility to use this
(Mabert, Soni & Venkataramanan, 2001)accurate information for making timely and quick decision for the organisation. Now here what we planning is that there ill Information Technology related some web based GUI solution available. It will have following kind of user like customers, program manager, inventory manager and the vendors. Now these users can log into the software and the information as per their requirements and as per their functionality. Now a customer can place a order for the tin cans with audible oil in them in certain number. Now this information will go into the central database. The program manger can analyze the current stock of each of the component required for this customer order. If any of the component stock is less than the current order he can place the order to the vendor online. Now when the vendor brings the components stock to the factory premises, he can enter the information into the database that he has delivered the stock, after getting the delivery then inventory manager then update the database of each of the component out of 3000 components in the stock. Now it is the responsibility of the program manager to view
(Mabert, Soni & Venkataramanan, 2001) this information from different directions and decide and prepare the schedule for the tin cans preparation in fixed batches, now here as well the software can helps itself, the Enterprise Resource Planning IT tool will take stock of given components, and number of them need to be prepared and the the number that can be prepared in a day in fixed batches. Take an example that there is a requirement of 12 cans but as of now only 10 are available and the vendor will supply the rest of the 2 cans in a day or two, then the ERP tool will analyze this information, also we have to take care that stock of fixed size in batches of 6 can be taken only and it takes half production day to prepare one (Van & Waarts, 2000) batch, so now situation is very clear, since there are 10 can s are available and only fixed size batches production can be taken, the tool will take decision to prepare 6 cans for a particular day and then subtract the ready cans from the customer order, then we will left with only 6 cans only that need to be prepared which can be taken into production when the vendor supplies the other 2 cans as well, on the next day that production lot can be taken into account. So here is an excellent example how the flow of information has helped the program to take the decision using ERP-IT SAP based tool within seconds, it also shows that how the program manager has been relieved from the responsibility of doing day to day computation analysis and work as well. Now here we need to see that there are different entities like inventory control management, production management, vendors and customers which need to work closely with each other. By using this solution each of the entity is loosely bound with each other, although they are directly dependent on each other like process the flow of information from the customer to sales and sales to program manager plays an important in one thread. So the thing to be noted here is that that it helps in the integration of different modules or departments of the organisation with each other very easily. They work with each other closely. Once the solution is successfully implemented it also helps in increasing trust with the customers as well. The increase in customer trust helps the organisation to keep the loyalty of their customer to the organisation. It helps in getting the order from the customer in long term once the confidence of the customer is being won. Other point being it also helps in bringing the efficiency in the organisation given the huge structure of the organisation, it helps in bringing efficiency in terms of working of the (Van & Waarts, 2000) employees which helps them in taking the decision easily. In this kind of system functionality it is very important to realise then the enterprise application which has been created need to cater the demand of information mainly for four threads. The one thread is information flowing from the customer to the sales and from sales to the program manager; the second thread of information is from the inventory manager to the program manager, the third thread being the information flow from the program manager to the vendor and the fourth thread of information flow being from vendor to the inventory manager. So the tool need to take these intricacies specially in order to facilitate to build the tool which helps in building the organisation, solves the organisation issues like inventory components management, making plans as per the inventory stocks every day, placing order to the vendors for the components depending on the order from the customer and the stock for the component as well.
Conclusion
In this business case study we have seen a problem being faced by a small medium sized organisation regarding inventory management and doing the program schedule management on the basis of that. In this kind of solution there is practical applicability we have seen that there is a central database which has been connected to some web based application which updates the database by different actors and this database is being analyzed based on different components requirements. Now there are 3000 different components and its not practical for the program manager to look into each of the component and then prepare a schedule. Now in this case study we have been able to show that an ERP SAP solution can be cater to the organisation which can helps the organisation to build in such a way it has helped the (Davenport, 2000) organisation in fixing the problems like inventory components management, making plans as per the inventory stocks every day, placing order to the vendors for the components depending on the order from the customer and the stock for the component as well. The tool has been build which has been able to integrate different business modules of the organisation which are loosely coupled with each other in such a manner there is flow of information in different threads like one thread is information flowing from the customer to the sales and from sales to the program manager; the second thread of information is from the inventory manager to the program manager, the third thread being the information flow from the program manager to the vendor and the fourth thread of information flow being from vendor to the inventory manager. With the implementation of these kind of solution the organisation will be able to win the customer confidence and also will able to get customer loyalty as well in the long term. It will help the organisation indirectly in getting the orders from the customer consistently as well in the future. Within the organisation as well the new processes will get a birth, the working atmosphere within the organisation will become more of process oriented, it will helps the employees to learn new technologies and tools, helps them to grow and horn their skills as well. The standardisation of the processes will help the organisation to concentrate more of their resources on the customer requirements then solving these internal problems of the company.
References
Mabert, V.M., Soni, A. and Venkataramanan, M.A. 2001. “Enterprise resource planning: measuring value,” Production and Inventory Management, Vol. 42, No. �, pp.46-51.
Davenport, T.H. 2000. Mission Critical: Realizing the Promise of Enterprise resource planning systems, Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
Van, Y, and Waarts, E. 2000. “ERP adoption by European mid-size companies,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 43, No.4, pp.27-31.
Edwards, P., Peters, M. and Sharman, G. (2001) “The effectiveness of information systems in supporting the extended supply chain,” Journal of Business Logistics, Vol. 22, No.1, pp.1-27.
Tarn, Y. 2002. Exploring the rationales for ERP and SCM integration, Industrial Management & Data Systems, vol.102, no.1, p.26-34.