Additional questions about the course

 

What was the most difficult assessment item you completed so far in COIS12073 this term?

Answer: The assessment item -1 where I had to create an annotated bibliography was a new thing to me and was a bit difficult as well

What was difficult about it and how would you suggest it could be improved?

Answer: The word limit imposed and the referencing style was a bit confusing for me as I was collecting information from various types of sources. Well, if the word limit is removed it can become a bit easier.

If you could provide three (3) pieces of advice to a student who will be doing this course next term what would they be?

Answer: Always do their weekly question answers for the blog in weekly basis and start the annotated bibliography and the case study report well before the date of submission. Also discuss the assessment items with their course mates.

How will you be able to use this knowledge/these skills in your future career?

Answer: What I have learnt from this course will be very helpful for me in the future to work in an ERP system environment and managing implementation projects of ERP systems.

Week 10

Q.2 Using Sumner (2005), read the article on pages 149 – 150. Answer the following: a. What aspects of BI have been employed in this case example? b. What would you expect to be the challenges facing the development of a BI approach for such a large organisation? c. Would Dow Corning be a suitable candidate for a shared services approach using an ASP? Justify and argue your answer

My response:

a) Dow Corning is planning to adapt a Data Warehouse and they are going to do so by using SAP’s Business Information Warehouse module  

 

 

b) The Dow Corning is a global organization and is operating world wide. The problem might arise when the organization will try transferring data within their branches and manufacturing plants situated in different parts of the world to the data warehouse system. Sophisticated computer programs and high performance server systems will be required to support the transfer process. However, prior to the establishment of the Data Warehouse the company will have to standardize their business practices and functions through all their branches and divisions to make sure a common data type is used.  

 

 

c) The advantages of adapting ASP:

 

a)  The company will not have to pay for expensive computer and servers anymore as they would if an ERP system was adapted

 

b)  Lower maintanence cost.

 

c)  Avoid upfront payment as it is required for an ERP system.

d)  Save money on consultation fees as ASP will take care of such matters.

 

On the other hand, there are some risks associated as well with the adaption of ARP.

a)      Depent on the reliability of ASP

b)      Data security

d)      Service quality.

e)      Flexibility

f)      Integration might become difficult.

 

At the end I would like to conlcude by saying that leaving the data in control of an external party is always a tough decision to make.

 

 

Rough outline of the presentation:

 

1. Introduction.
2. Purpose of the presentation and the topic of it.
3. The problems faced by RMIT with their People Soft ES.
4. My arguments toward selecting the option for RMIT.
5. Concluding with my recommendation.
6. Thanking the audience and welcome questions from them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 9

Q.3 What external factors (non-implementation project related) could affect how and when an ERP goes live? Explain and justify.

My response:

There are few external factors that can affect how and when an ERP system goes live. For the related organizations it is very important for them to keep close eyes on these factors.

 

 

Government policies:

 

 

Government policies may have an effect on the system goes live date. For example, if the government changes the tax payable rate for some items then the ERP system has to make changes within the system to perform accurate and valid calculations.

 

Infrastructural changes:

Change in the infrastructure can effect the go live date. For instance, a transport company adopting an ERP system is heavily dependent on the routes it takes for a truck to travel within the cities. For any reason if a major high-way is closed for a month then their cost of travel will increase and they will not be able to offer their service as they used to before. However, power suppliers and internet service providers can also delay the date by failing to supply the power or related service.

 

Unavoidable circumstances:

 

Natural digesters such as storm or flood can also delay the date of system going live and apart from the god’s will there are other situations like a bomb or terrorist threat or employees going on strikes can have an effect on the system go live date as well.

 

Presence of provisioning team:

 

 

The consultants or the people related to the provisioning team sometimes leave the project intentionally or unintentionally just before a day or two of the system going live and any problem occurring within that time can force the system to select a later go live date.

 

Users and their frame of mind:

 

Sometimes the training can not be finished within the anticipated date because of the skill level of the users. It is common that the users require additional training along with the training to work with the new ERP system. On the other hand, the frame of mind of the users can become an obstacle itself if the accept prejudice from their mates like using an ERP system is too difficult and stressful.

 

 

 

 

Tips for a good presentation

1)      Know the target audience and their background.

2)      Do plenty of auditions before the actual presentation

3)      Easy language to be used

4)      Speak to the audience and make eye contacts

5)      Pictoral and visual presentation of information

6)      Avoid jargon and too much information in one slide

7)      Use of appropiate humor and no generalized comments to be made on    sensitive    issues such as religious and racial issues.

8)  Use of good contrast in the slides and appropiate font size that is good to the eyes.

9) Welcome questions from the audience and answer them according to the context of the presentation.

 

Week 8

Q.1 Using Sumner (2005), answer questions 1 and 3 on pages 97 – 98.

 

My response:

 

1.

 

a) In my opinion a non manufacturing can also earn benefits by adapting an ERP system. Today, the ERP systems available in the market offer systems for manufacturing businesses using the manufacturing modules together with the other modules like accounting and finance, sales and order processing, stock and inventory, purchase and customer records etc. So, business which does not manufacture goods can still adapt an ERP system and use the other modules as per their requirement. ERP systems offered by Oracle are module based and have different modules for different business operations allowing all sorts of businesses to facilitate themselves by adapting ERP system. For instance a retailing business can decide to adapt an ERP system and implement the modules like accounting, purchase, sales or more only. It does not have to buy an entire ERP suit which includes the manufacturing module as well.  

 

b)

 

It was 1960’s when the ERP systems evolved for the first time. However, the systems developed during 1960’s had inventory management facilities only. In 1970 Material Requirement Planning (MRP) came into the market in which inventory modules became a part of it. The MRP systems provided various other facilities such as production scheduling, sales planning, order processing etc. Then in 1980’s MRP-II systems became available which introduced other modules like financial accounting, materials management to the world of business. Finally in 1990’s the modern ERP systems evolved and brought facilities such as human resource, customer profile and included the existing ones previously offered by MRP II systems.

 

 

So, looking back into the history tells us that the MRP system was the mother of the modern day’s ERP systems.

 

3.

 

Human Resources: this link is very important. A HR system usually provides information on the total human resource available to the business. The system takes employee skill level, area of work, and experience in the field all into consideration. So, there is also a need of regular updates to be performed so the business can use this information efficiently.

 

Sales and Distribution: is very important to the production and material management system. A business needs accurate information on sales forecast to maximize its profit. This link will help the system by providing accurate information about purchasing raw materials for production and will make the business avoid any over stocking. This module will help the business from over production in the same way. However, the module also records the buying patterns of the customers. For example, a buyer from Australia buying sports goods every year will not buy the same product throughout the year but buy it for the season when a particular sport is played in Australia.

 

 

Financial Accounting: the material management system update the accounting system regularly so that the suppliers can receive their payments correctly and on time. It helps the business not to make unnecessary payments for faulty or damaged material supplied and also enables the business to keep track of its production cost at all times.

Week 7

Question:

Imagine that in the ERP implementation you are involved with, users that are reluctant to get involved with phase 2. What issues, problems and risks, both short and long term, does this present?

My response:

 

The involvement of the users is a necessity for a successful implementation of any ERP project. The information provided by the user is required by project implementation team to make sure that the project ERP system will serve its purpose. However, the involvement of the users is needed in before, during and even after the implementation. Otherwise if the ERP system is not able to serve its purpose efficiently it will result in employee frustration and they might even reject it at some stage.

 

It is hard for me to agree that total involvement from the end users is not a must during all the stages of the implementation phase. There might be different issues, problems and risks arising from the users not being involved. A few of them are discussed as the following:

 

Interfacing:

 

This is an area which is usually covered in the phase 2 of the implementation of an ERP system. Sometimes, the organizations are quite reluctant about considering the user involvement thinking that interfacing is a technical issue and the IT professionals will take a good care of it by themselves but this does not make much sense to me. Because interfacing sets up connection within two systems to communicate and transfer data in between. The user involvement will guarantee accurate data format and the correct gap in time intervals necessary in transactions was taken care of during the implementation phase. The users are the only ones who know what type of data format they are using and the variety of them in different operations. If users are not consulted it may happen that, data supplied by one system is not compatible by the other one or may result in incorrect billing to the customers of the organization.

 

Prototyping:

 

When it comes to prototyping the consultants and the IT professionals create an live environment very similar to the actual system but simulation based to demonstrate the use of live data in various functions and process cycles of the business. This simulation allows the user to see the system for the first time and the users can match their expectations and needs by participating in this process. If the users are unwilling to participate then the consultants will never know what the users were expecting from the system or whether the ERP system is well enough to face the needs of the business. The inputs from the users are very crucial to justify the role of the system according to the business flows, cycles and functionalities. It also makes sure that new problems will not be arising on or after the event of the system going live.

 

 

 

Business process re-engineering:

 

The involvement of end users is required in business process re-engineering because without taking the inputs from the users there is no way that a business process re-engineering can be brought to a success. Users are needed to be involved because they are the ones who experiences problems when the system goes live and they know about the business more than anyone else. Consulting the users encourages them to adapt a new a system and pass their views on how the business processes can be re-engineered to work more efficiently. If they are not considered as a part of the process and a re-engineered system is offered to them to use they might think there is too much to do with the re-engineered system and reject it at some stage if they are not familiar with it from before.

 

So, at the end I would again like to mention the involvement of the users is very much important in the implementation process of an ERP system. Organizations which have been successful in implementing an ERP system always had the user involvement before, during and after the implementation process.

 

Week 6

Question:

 

Can an informed ERP adoption and selection decision be made without fully understanding the problem? Why or why not – justify your answer.

 

My response:

 

An informed ERP adoption and selection decision can not be made without a complete understanding of the problem. The professionals who are responsible for making decisions on an ERP system adoption need to recognize a company’s functions before they can step any further. Usually the professionals get to see a list of possibilities only after they have started to evaluate the scenario of a project.

 

However, before going any further the consultants need to identify all the problems with the current or the manual system in use. They also need to know what about the expectations from a new system and in order to do so and to improve the different functionalities of the business a clear understanding is a must.

 

The consultants or the company’s professionals have to take the responsibility for the work they do and they can only do so when they have a complete understanding about the company and its business and also what kind of activities will be required for the adoption of an ERP system. It is very common that the professionals need to talk to someone who is very closely related to the company in order to understand the scenario of the ERP project they work on.

 

The team of the professionals needs to learn how each sector of a business performs its operation, the characteristics of the business, the key people in the organization for individual functions of the business, how the current system of the company is operating, get to know the bottlenecks and their positions, what time in the year is the busiest for the business and the reasons for that, how tax issues are dealt and how to handle the customers of different kind who are related to the business etc.

 

However, the project team also has to maintain their efficiency according to the time frame given to them and make sure that all the resources required for the project will be available at all times.