Week 9

1) Define the term operations management 

Operations management is the management of all processes that transport inputs into outputs. It is responsible for managing the core processes the business used to create their product.

2) Explain operations management’s role in business 

If all processes are efficient and productive in the transformation of inputs into outputs, the role would be:

• imaginative role, as they determine the process in the future
• forecasting, which involves estimating set demands
• capacity planning,
• scheduling
• managing inventories
• ensuring quality processes
• motivating employees
• Locating facilities

3) Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology 

The correlation is strong as Operation Managers role is varied and the need for IT to provide them with visibility of the business. This will help show them where the processes are. This will also show them what resources will be needed and in what amounts, when it should be scheduled, ordered and when corrective management will be needed. It also helps with where the work will be performed (e.g. near transport and near available labour) and how will the good be designed while designating who will perform the work, either in-source or outsource.

Overall, it is greatly used in the Operation Managers role as it helps them make correct decisions that will influence the whole business. Decision support systems greatly help in this area as many decisions have many possible outcomes. This is done through the use of what-if-analysis, which will help determined the best outcome.

4) Explain supply chain management and its role in a business

Supply chain management involves the management of information flows between the different stages of the supply chain in order to maximise total efficiency and profitability. The supply chain has 5 different steps - plan, source, make, deliver and return. This management involves communication between all 5 steps of the chain. The supply chains role in business is to decrease the power of its buyers while increase its own supplier power. It also as the job of increasing switching costs to reduce threats of substitutes and create entry barriers which will help with increasing efficiencies

5) List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain 

1. Plan: they must have a plan for managing all resources, a major part is developing sets of metrics to monitor the supply chain
2. Source: this is where the firms must choose their suppliers. While doing this they also determine the pricing, delivery and payment processes which they will do with the suppliers
3. Make: where companies manufacture the products, including scheduling, testing etc
4. Deliver: logistics e.g. set of processes that plans for and controls the transportation and storage of the products
5. Return: the receiving of the defective and excess products that the customers don't want

The supply chain could also take the form of: supplier to manufacturer to distributer to retailer to customer. In certain cases such as through the use of ebay, some of these steps are cut out. This then becomes the probem of disintermediation.

6) Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain

The supply chain heavily relies on IT to make accurate decisions regarding each step. As without IT problems such as over forecasting or under forecasting can be made. Therefore with the use of IT managers can accurately manage the supply chain. It also helps the supply chain gain visibility which allows us to view all areas up and down the supply chain. Through this the bullwhip effect is decreased, which involves the distorted product demand. The consumer behaviour helps with the use of Demand Planning Systems. This allows the company to respond quicker to customer demands by supply chain enhancements. And finally competition which is the supply chain planning systems that help improve the flow of the supply chain. Supply chain execution systems automate some of the steps in the supply chain. This shows that IT would then greatly make the supply chain faster. There is also the element of speed which through technology the supply chain would become faster. Overall, IT greatly benefits the supply chain and helps it develop as it makes it faster and more efficient.

Week 8

1.       Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology.

The benefits of using a wireless network include less hardware, less switches, no cables, a reduction in IT infrastructure and it’s easier to make. There is also an increase to productivity as you can be anywhere on the move and still do your job and with its universal access, it increases its mobility

2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP

VoIP is voice over existing line. The benefit of this is there is no need copper cables and it’s not reliant on phone companies, therefore if they have a problem it will not affect the individual. There can be business on many different sites as communications are free as well as international calls. Overall it is cost saving as you don't need infrastructure and leverage existing connections for free communication.

3. Compare LANs and WANs

LANs are connections of the same geographical locations. All connect to one server where they share data and communicate. They have to do this through authentication and authorization as it will help them control the people on the network.

WANs are connections from different geographic locations. This allows people from different LAN connections to connect together via the internet. This is evident with things such as the business website, where people in offsite locations can still connect with people from the main biulding.

4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective.

Radio frequency identification services e.g. etags. This is the use of small devices that send information back to the company immediately.

It can help the supply chain as companies can keep track of their inventory in all steps of the supply chain which keeps it efficient and productive as the businesses can clearly determine the time it will take to reach the customer, making less of a buffer as the customer will know exactly when the product will reach them. This will allow the business to apply the just in time principle as they will be able to navigate the time exactly as they will know the exact placement of the stock.

The video that makes this evident can be seen athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zj7txoDxbE.

5. Identify the advantages and disadvantage of deploying mobile technology

The advantages of deploying mobile technology include a mobile workforce as it will allow them to work anywhere and can see real time data and real time processing (eliminating steps within the business process), therefore making it faster

The disadvantages include the fact that wireless technology is insecure causing other problems such as it is not perceived as safe therefore making privacy issues apparent, especially with mobile phone cameras and with unsecure devices, other problems then arise such as viruses

Week 7

1. List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information.

(a) There are several characteristics of high quality information. This first of these include the accuracy of information such as are all the values correct? An example of this is, is the name spelled correctly? Is the dollar amount recorded properly?

(b) The second characteristic is completeness. Is the data missing any relevant information? For example, is the address complete, including street, city, state, and zip code?

(c) The third characteristic of high quality information is whether or not it is consistent. For example is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed information? Put simply do all total fields equal the true total of the individual fields?

(d) The fourth characteristic to enable high quality data requires uniqueness, such as, is each transaction, entity, and event represented only once in the information? A clear example of this is, ‘are there any duplicate customers?’

(e) The fifth and last characteristic is the timeliness – is the information current with respect to the business requirements? For example, is information updated weekly, daily, or hourly?

2. Define the relationship between a database and a database management system.
The relationship between a database and a database management system can be broken down into two distinct categories. This first of these being direct interaction allows the user to interact directly with the Data Base Management System, which then in turn, obtains the information from the database. The second category, the indirect interaction allows the user to interact with an application such as a sales application. This application then interacts with the data base management system which subsequently obtains the information from the database.
This process can we witnessed in the image below.

3. Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.
There are six advantages that an organization can gain from using a database. The first advantage of using a database is that it increases flexibility as a well-designed database should be able to handle changes quickly and easily while providing its users with different views while further maintaining only one physical view. It should however have multiple logical views. The second advantage is linked with the third, these being an increased scalability and performance which will allow an organizations database to meet increased demand, while maintaining acceptable performance levels. The fourth advantage of using a database is that it prevents data redundancy, that is, it stops the same data being stored in many places. The fifth advantage ensures the organization that its data meets constraints such as student grade averages cannot be negative. Put simply, it helps ensure the quality of information. The final advantage of an organization using a database is that it increases its information security, that is, it keeps the organisation’s data safe from theft, modification, and/or destruction.

4. Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model.

The fundamental concept behind the relational database model concerns itself with a collection of tables from which data can be accessed in many different ways without having to reorganize the database tables. That is, once relationships are created, tables can “talk” to each other.  We can link the tables to find such things as which teacher is teaching each subject and which item is selling the most on Friday’s. The tables are 2 dimensional that related to each other in order to allow flexibility and visibility over the business. Each table consists of both columns and rows.

An example of this can be found at

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-matters8/relat.gif

5. Describe the benefits of a data-driven website.

Few benefits of a data-driven website include:

• it is faster to search through data
• more competitive
• increased customer satisfaction as they get the information they want in a faster and more efficient way

6. Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organization

Data warehouses: collection of databases that collect business analysis and decision making tasks. The primary purpose is to aggregate information throughout an organisation into a single area in order to make decisions simpler.

Data mart: smaller subset of a database

The purpose of these is to move away from transactional data to get information and visibility across whole firms and produce all data across all functional areas.

Week 6

1.       What is information architecture and what is information infrastructure and how do they differ and how do they relate to each other?

Information architecture is an overall plan of how an organisation is going to configure its IT resources to meet business goals where as information infrastructure is the actual implementation that provides an effective Information System, including services, hardware, software and people involved.

2. Describe how an organisation can implement a solid information architecture

With new architectures, organizations that use IT effectivilty can build new business capabilities faster, cheaper, and in a vocabulary the business can understand such as web services, which have become a major avenue for this integration, and  open systems and source code rather than proprietary systems and source code.

An organization may also use a solid information architecture to create an exact copy of a system’s information, known as backup while also implementing the ability to get a system up and running (including the data) in the event of a system crash or failure. A company may build a computer system designed that in the event a component fails, a backup component can immediately take over with no loss of service. Furthermore a backup operation in which the functions of a computer component such as a processor or a database is assumed by secondary system components when the primary component becomes unavailable through either failure or scheduled down time

3.       List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture. 

àFlexibility = Able to meet changing business demands while involving multinational challenges
àScalability = Systems ability to meet growth requirements and involves Capacity planning
àReliability = High Accuracy and Low Accuracy puts the organisation at risk
àAvailability = High availability 99.999% uptime and ensures business continuity
àPerformance = How quickly a system performs a certain task an growing pressure on systems to be faster

4.       Describe the business value in deploying a service oriented architecture 

The service orientated architecture is using existing system in different ways to meet different demands. A company may build services then re uses same piece of technology as they are able to adapt quickly and easily to different demands. You can start to gain better information flows between different systems. Users can re-use applications many times for different tasks making expansion economical and more compatible.

5.       What is an event? 

Events are the eyes and ears of the business expressed in technology—they detect threats and opportunities and alert those who can act on the information. Pioneered by telecommunication and financial services companies, this involves using IT systems to monitor a business process for events that matter and automatically alert the people best equipped to handle the issue.

6.       What is a service?

Services are more like software products than they are coding projects. They must appeal to a broad audience, and they need to be reusable if they are going to have an impact on productivity. Early forms of services were defined at too low a level in the architecture to interest the business, such as simple “print” and “save” services. The new services are being defined at a higher level; they describe such things as “credit check,” “customer information,” and “process payment.” These services describe a valuable business process. For example, “credit check” has value not just for programmers who want to use that code in another application, but also for businesspeople who want to use it across multiple products—say, auto loans and mortgages—or across multiple business.

7.       What emerging technologies can companies can use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?

Virtual Computing Benefits is one of two emerging technologies that companies can use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure effectively. This can be done by reducing capital costs through increases in energy efficiency while requiring less hardware which increasing your server to admin ratio. This ensures that the enterprise application performs with the highest availability and performance.  Virtualisation also improves enterprise desktop management & control with faster deployment of desktops and fewer support calls due to application conflict. It also reduces hardware infrastructure and increasing utilisation of software while consolidating and reducing power and cooling requirements.

The second of the two emerging technologies is Grid computing which is an aggregation of geographically dispersed computing, storage, and network resources, coordinated to deliver improved performance, higher quality of service, better utilization, and easier access to data.

Furthermore Grid computing is used by scientific, e-Commerce, technical or engineering projects that require many processing cycles to complete a job. It allows people to offer their free-processing time on home computers to companies

Week Five Questions

1. Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology

There are several ethical issues surrounding information technology such as Intellectual Property, Copyright, Fair use doctrine, Pirated Software, Counterfeit software.

Intellectual property is the collection of rights that protect creative and intellectual effort.
Copyright is the exclusive right to do, or omit to do, certain acts with intangible property such as a song, video game and some types of proprietary documents.
Pirated Software is the unauthorised use, duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted software.
Counterfeit software is software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as such.


2. Describe the relationship between an ‘email privacy policy’ and an ‘Internet use policy’.

The email privacy policy details the appropriate ways in which email messages should be used and the extent to which emails may be read by others. The email privacy policy also defines who legitimate email users are. The policy should complement the ‘ethical computer use policy’. Similar to the email policy, the ‘Internet use policy’ contains general principles to guide the proper use of the internet within an organization such as the available internet services and the ramifications for violations. The use of emails may be covered in the internet policy.


3. Summaries the five steps to creating an information security plan

4. What do the terms; authentication and authorization mean, how do they differ, provide some examples of each term.

Authentication is a method for confirming user identities such as face recognition or smart cards where as authorization is the process of giving someone permission to do or have something.

Authentication and authorization can be classified into three categories. (1) Something the user knows such as a password or user ID, (2) something the user has such as smart card or token, (3) something that is part of the user, such as fingerprint.

5. What are the five main types of Security Risks, suggest one method to prevent the severity of risk?

The five main types of security Risks are:

1/Human Error

2/Technical Failure

3/Natural Disasters

4/Deliberate Acts

5/Management Failure

To prevent technical failure, a organisation may use robust systems and implement backups to prevent the loss of information.

Week Four Questions

1 What is an IP Address? What is its main function?
An internet protocol address is a numerical label that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network that uses the internet protocol for communication between its nodes. Every computer on the internet has a unique IP address and these can be either public or private. An IP address has two main functions; (1) to be a host or network interface identification and (2) location addressing. Put simply, it is the basic communication language of the internet.

2. What is Web 2.0, how does it differ from 1.0?

Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social and technology trends that collectively from the basis for the next generation of the internet—a more mature distinctive medium characterised by user participation, openness and network effects. The term Web 2.0 does not refer to an update of technical specifications; rather, it refers to changes in the way software developers and end-users use the web as a platform. Web 2.0 allows its users to interact with other users or to contribute to website’s content, in contrast to web 1 where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. The web is no longer linking text, its linking people.

(http://www.blog.aysoon.com/)

3. What is Web 3.0?
Web 3.o is a term that has been tainted with different meanings to describe the development of web usage and interaction among numerous separate paths. These include transforming the web into a database, a move towards making content available by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies, or the semantic web which is an evolving expansion of the World Wide Web in which content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a format that can be read and used by software agents, thus allowing them to find, share and integrate information more easily.

4. Describe the different methods an organisation can use to access information
There are four common tools an organisation can use to access information, these being the (1) Intranet, (2) Extranet, (3) portal and (4) kiosk. (1) The intranet is an internalised section of the internet sheltered from outside access, which permits an organisation to provide access to information and application software to only its employees. It can host all kinds of business associated information such as benefits, entitlements, schedules, strategic direction and employee directories. (2) The Extranet is an Intranet that is available to tactical ‘allies’, such as customers, suppliers and partners. (3) A Portal (e.g http://www.9msn.com/) is a website that provides a large selection of resources and services, such as email, online discussion groups and search engines. (4) A kiosk is a publically available computer system that has been programmed to allow interactive information browsing. In a kiosk, the computer’s operational system has been concealed from view, and the program runs in a full screen mode, which provides a few simple tools for navigation.

5. What is e-Business, how does it differ from e-Commerce?
The term e-business refers to the conducting of business on the internet, including the buying and selling, serving customers and collaborating with business partners. In contrast, the term e-commerce has a narrower meaning and purposes that e-business as it refers only to online transactions where as e-business also refers to online exchanges of information, such as a financial institution allowing its customers to review their banking, credit card and mortgage accounts.

6. List and describe the various e-Business models?

(1.www.wikipedia.org/wiki//business-to-government)

7. List 3 metrics you would use if you were hired to assess the effectiveness and the efficiency of an
e-Business web site?

(1) Click stream data

(2) Cookies

(3) Banner ad


8. Outline 2 opportunities and 2 challenges faced by companies doing business online?
There are several benefits for doing business online such as:
(1) the highly accessible nature of the web which allows businesses to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and
(2) the cost of conducting business on the internet is substantially smaller than traditional forms of business communication.

There are also several challenges to using the internet to do business such as:
(1) Protecting consumers against unsolicited goods and communication illegal or harmful goods and
(2) Increasing liability. As e-business exposes suppliers to unknown liabilities because Internet commerce law is vaguely defined and differs from country to country

Week Three Questions

1. Define TPS & DSS, and explain how an organisation can use these systems to make decisions and gain competitive advantages

Transactional Processing system is the basic business system that serves the operational level in an organisation. TPS enable organisations to contain all their information within a single business process which allows support for the daily operational tasks such as sales, receipts, cash deposits, payroll, credit decisions and flow of materials. These transactions can be managed though batch processing which enables a business to collect data from transactions as they occur, placing them in groups or batches. They are then prepared and processed periodically, often without human intervention, thus minimising the risk or error. The appropriate decisions are then made based on this ordered and accurate information.

Transaction related process were the first to be automated because these repetitive, consistent, high volume tasks were ideal candidates for ‘computerisation’. As TPS are the foundation for all other information systems, they are out-reaching and convey impressions to the customers about the quality of business and further, can be built on a client/ server architecture which allows for a faster transaction process, giving competitive advantage.

DSS or Decision Support Systems help managers make decisions, in particular in relation to complex situations, also known as unstructured or semi structured problems such as estimating the sum of future cash flows from the use of long-lived assets, judging the adequacy of an argument promoting a reduction in the capital gains tax rate and preparing an operating budget for the next 5 years. These functions allow a business to predetermine the course of the business.

2. Describe the three quantitative models typically used by decision support systems.
There are three quantitative models used by DSSs to determine business possibilities. These include:

(1) Sensitivity analysis - the study of the impact that changes in one (or more) parts of the model have on other parts of the model. Users change the value of one variable repeatedly and observe the resulting change

(2) What-if analysis - checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution.

(3) Goal-seeking analysis - finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output. Instead of observing how changes in a variable affect other variables as in what if analysis, goal seeking analysis sets a target value fir a variable and then repeatedly changes other variables until the target value is achieved.

3. Describe a business processes and their importance to an organisation.

Business process is a standardised set of activities that accomplish a specific task, such as processing a customs order. Business Process transform a set of inputs into a set of outputs (goods or services) for another person or process by using people as tools. Examining business processes helps an organization to anticipate bottlenecks and eliminate duplicate activities, combine related activities and indentify smooth-running processes. Organisations are only effective as their business process and developing logical business process can help an organisation achieve its goals

4. Compare business process improvement and business process re-engineering.

Many organisations begin business process improvement with a continuous improvement model. A continuous process improvement model attempts to understand and measure the current process, and make performance improvements accordingly whereas Business Process re-engineering relies on a different school of thought than business process improvement. In the extreme BPR assumes the current process is irrelevant, does not work, or is broken and must be overhauled from scratch. Such a clean slate enables for a total process remodel while further enabling the process designers to distance themselves from today’s process and focus on a new process. Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises. Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises.

5. Describe the importance of business process modelling (or mapping) and business process models.
Business process modelling is the activity of generating a detailed flowchart or process map of a work process, showing its inputs, tasks and activities in a structured sequence where as a business process model is a visual representation of a process, showing the succession of process tasks, which is developed for a specific purpose and from a selected viewpoint. The importance of a business process model is to expose the process detail gradually and in a controlled manner while further promoting conciseness and accuracy in describing the process model. It also directs consideration on the process model interfaces while providing a powerful process analysis and consistent design vocabulary. Today’s technology makes the processes within a business invisible, so BPM makes the processes visible