Entity-Relationship Modeling - Case Study Example

Information System Name Course Institution Date Introduction The corporate world today is fast moving toward adopting innovations that will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations; these innovations are largely based on the technological advancements that have been made in the areas of information technology, based on the internet as the modal tool for efficiency today. Companies are working hard to adopt the best forms of information technologies that will facilitate ease of management in their companies for both management and employees. This growing need has seen a revolution of a number of systems being developed with the aim of meeting the corporate needs for their business operations. The purpose of this paper shall be to critically asses the operations of EquipHire in its present business operations, identify that key areas in these operations that need to be reinforced through effective information systems, explore a range of the available information systems suitable for businesses such as EquipHire, and then determine the best and most suitable core system that EquipHire can adopt to enable it improve its business operations. Description of Business EquipHire is a large company that deals in hiring commercial and domestic equipment across states in Australia. The company has been doing well in the industry from the profits it registered in the past and the expansion model it has adopted for its business. This calls for even more effective systems that will enable it improve its service delivery to meet the ever increasing customer demand. Although the business had a good plan with its HireIT program, which was aimed at making the process of hiring easier in recording and follow ups, the system has failed to achieve this end because it is not able to reflect in its operations the fast moving trends in technology. The company needs a system that is fast enough to meet the needs of its commercial customers, as its major customer base comprises of commercial customers, who need high levels of efficiency to enable them meet the needs of their customers as well. Presently, the costing of the hiring is done using spreadsheets, which is a long and daunting process for the business considering the high rate of customers it has to handle on a daily basis. Because of the increased business activity, the p-resent inventory system, which is largely manual, is not efficient enough to meet the needs of the business and reflect the true states of the business’ operations and activities. The business needs a system that will be able to handle the nature of the business’ operations, which fluctuate depending on the season and the construction activity taking place at the season. Another problem that the company is facing is that of inadequate checking and inspection of the quality of its equipment, so that at times, it may hire to its customers equipment of lower quality. It needs to improve on this so that it can ensure that the hires to its customers equipment of the highest quality and standards at all times in order to maintain its reputation and brand image among customers. This will help it in developing its competitive advantage because in the industry that it operations, the quality of the equipment it hires plays a core role in attracting and maintaining its customers. The company still performs most of its functions manually, an aspect that serves to delay the performance of the functions as well as the accuracy of these functions. These factors make it necessary for the company to come up with a much effective information system that will improve the performance and delivery of these and other services that the company offers its customers. The system that the company needs, therefore, is one that is quite innovative, one that will increase the accuracy of its functions, and one that will facilitate effective inspection of the equipment to ensure that they are at their highest standards possible. Crucial decisions for the company are made at the company’s top management through the directors, who decide the kind of systems that should be adopted from the recommendations they get from middle managers and employees in the course of their activities. In making the decision on the type of systems suitable for adoption, the top management should bear in mind the key information areas of the business. These include costing for large and long-term hires, the company’s inventory systems, equipment utilization rates, equipment checking and maintenance, and receipting for hiring and delivery of the equipment. These are the core areas of the business sin its operations, and are the areas that need to be effectively managed in order to increase the efficiency of the business. The transactions processing system needs a system that will enable the company to receive orders for the carious equipment from the company’s customers, process these orders within the shortest time possible, and send the equipment requested to these customer companies ensuring that the equipment are of the expected quality. This department needs to keep a database of its transactions on a daily basis as well as a record of the Customer Company and individuals to track their hiring needs. The sales and customer relationship management is the other area that needs an effective system. This department needs to maintain a database of its customers and their needs so that it is able to process customer orders even at their absence. The sales department, which is tasked with the delivery of the equipment ordered, must ensure that it delivers equipment of the highest standards possible to maintain the reputation of the company, hence the need for a system that will ensure high level inspections are carried out for the equipment before they are delivered. The carbon paper receipts should be replaced with a more efficient receipting system done through the internet so that the customer gets cleared online even without his presence and does not have to carry the carbon receipts. This will ensure easy reference for the clearance as the records can be retrieved from the computer and the customer will not have to produce the carbon receipt for reference. This will increase the efficiency of clearance for customers, and will increase the quality of relationship between the sales department and customers. The inventory system needs a system that will carry out constant inventories of the equipment available at every time that a transaction is processed. This will inform of the management of the equipment that need to be replaced and those that are at good state. The accounts department needs a system that is extremely accurate to capture the transactions made and enter them into the system database for reference. The system should b able to identify the transactions that have been completed, those that are still pending, and those that might be hampered with problems. Lastly, it is important that management has a system that will enable effective decision making among them so that quick decisions are made fast enough for efficiency in the delivery of services. Types of Information Systems An information system comprises of the hardware, software, people, data, and the procedures that are used to enable the generation of information that can enable and support the day to day running of a business as well as the long term operations of a business. Business information systems are classified into five major groups and they include management information systems, office information systems, transaction processing systems, decision support systems, and expert systems. Office information systems are procedures and software that enable the employees in an office situation to communicate with one another and exchange a wide array of information among them. This system uses office communications technology to pass messages among employees such as videoconferencing, electronic data exchange, voicemail email, spreadsheets, and many other formats (Kotter & Dan, 2002). The transactions processing systems perform various activities including deposits, payments, orders, and reservations as made by customers. Management information systems are used to enable management to perform functions like decision making, solving problems, tracking the progress of various activities, and supervisory activities. The decision support system enables individuals in their departments to make viable decisions regarding the activities of their transactions. Expert systems are used by employees to enable them make decisions pertaining to the activities of the company. They are able to use artificial intelligence to articulate problems of the organization and devise solutions to these problems based on the previous experience it has in the area. Although these systems are distinctly classified in their respective areas, integrated information systems have been devised to integrate the performance of two or more systems to achieve a more comprehensive framework for the functions of the business (O’Brien, 1999). Recommended Information Systems From the analysis of the activities and requirements of EquipHire, the business needs to adopt the information systems of transactions processing systems and the decision support system. The transaction processing system will be important to the business in the areas of the transactions it makes with customers, including the ordering and delivery processes, running of the business accounts, and managing employee-customer relations. Using the transactions systems, the business will be able to record the transactions it runs on a daily basis, confirms the transaction made and prints documents of confirming the transaction made, and maintains the data of the transaction made for future reference. The benefits of this model are that it increases the speed with which the transactions are made, reduces the costs accrued to processing the documents of the transaction, and improves the quality of services accorded to customers through the efficiency of the transaction process (Baltzan & Phillips, 2009). The general effect of this will be increased efficiency in the manner in which it performs its transactions, which is an appealing factor for most customers, hence will increase the preferences of the customers for the company. The online transaction processing will enable EquipHire make its hire bookings and orders online, so that they are processed instantly the time they are received. This will also be used to manage the company’s inventories and pass information regarding the inventory to management within the shortest time possible. Management will then be able to make decisions based on the information from the inventories, which will enable the smooth continuity of the business. The decision information system will use information from both the external and internal sources to inform the decisions to be made. This model will use information from the business on the sales, inventory, manufacturing, and financial data among others to determine the types of decisions to be made. External information that affects the decisions made include interests rates in the market and industry, fluctuations in the demand for housing, and other factors in the macro-economic environment that affect the operations of the company. In this case, the fluctuations in the demand for housing and construction activities play a big role in influencing the demand for the equipment offered by the company. using this system, the company will be able identify key factors and related activities of the business in order to make important decision on the kind of equipment that need to be increased, the times of the year and seasons that the company needs to undertake certain activities depending on the markets demand, and activities that the business can engage in during the low season times to prevent it from running into loss. The executive information system will be important to enable top management to make important decisions regarding the operations of the company such as allocating certain amounts of money to enable the adoption of useful technology to replace the present HireIT (Baker, 1990). Conclusion The resulting effect of the company’s adoption of the business information systems recommended above will be increased efficiency for the company and the ability for the company to identify the areas that need certain functions to increase its ability to meet and exceed the requirements of customers. EquipHire will be able to take and process orders much faster, ensure that its equipment are of high quality, process its accounts faster and more accurately, and improve the relationship between customers and the employees through effective cooperation between the two. This way, the company will increase its appeal before its customers, which will serve to increase its reputation and image, hence increase its profitability. Reference List Baker, R. (1990). CASE Method: Entity Relationship Modeling. Addison-Wesley. Baltzan, P., & Phillips, A. (2009). Business Driven Information Systems. McGraw Hill, Irwin. Kotter, J, & Dan, C. (2002). The Heart of Change. Boston: Harvard Business School. O’Brien, J. (1999). Management Information Systems: Managing Information Technology in the Inter-networked Enterprise. Boston: Irwin, McGraw Hill. Read More