The positive and negative impacts of an IT application within an organisation - Essay Example

1. Organizational Background 1 Products BT Industries is a manufacturer of trendy home appliances such as coffee makers, small microwaves, toasters, and an automatic defroster for frozen food. Market share was expected to increase from 4% to 12% in a highly competitive market. Projections were a direct result of the proven ability of designers to successfully anticipate trends for the BT market segment as well as the ability of the manufacturing sector to translate those designs into easily manufactured items. 1.2 Location The Head Office is in Boston, with four assembly plants in Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami and Boston. The company accounting function is centralized in Boston with remote terminals at all manufacturing plants. Systems analysis and programming staff are also based in Boston whilst each of the four plants have only a few applications programmers to ‘trouble shoot’ on site. 1.3 Market Essence of marketing is aimed at the ‘Yuppie’ market where two-income families have made time more precious than money. For this market, the emphasis is on up-to-date styling and perceived quality for traditional appliances. It is the intention of BT Industries to keep the final design of its products as secret as possible especially from Far East Asian competitors. 1.4 IT Systems 1.4.1 CAD/CAM system in Boston with communications links directly to assembly plants. The purpose of the system is to accelerate the design process of currently sold appliances from the inception idea to the actual manufactured product. 1.4.2 DEC VAX/VMS 8600 system (computer controlled assembly process) in Boston manufacturing branch, also used for prototyping, with identical systems in the other assembly plants. 1.4.3 VAX 8250 system with a strong communications research link to the outside. 2. Positive and Negative Impacts of the IT applications Positive Impacts Negative Impacts * Accelerated design process; from inception idea to actual manufactured product * Rotation of programmers out of the sites on a biannual basis to work on new developments or to do maintenance * Assisted developers of ‘futuristic’ products to stay current with the latest trends * CAD/CAM system was new to the company and initial estimates for a quick payback did not leave a large margin for error * Documentation for staff both in the Research area and in the area of programs which have been developed to customize their CAD/CAM packages * Resistance from some designers to the new CAD/CAM system 3. Problem Identification The computer intensive approach of management is evident from the heavy investment in new plant and equipment. The large capital investment in the CAD/CAM system to remain ahead of its competitors on a time scale rather than cut costs in manufacturing would have been more successful if more attention was directed towards design and implementation, training, managing the change and the development of administrative and systems development control systems. Class-based reengineering is also offered as a solution since the information systems have already been implemented. 4. Suggested Strategies 4.1 Design and Implementation Information gathering should never become an end in itself, for the expertise and experience in people’s heads can be more useful than facts on paper. If design and implementation is given the necessary attention, IT will enable managers to enjoy greater strategic awareness and will result in more reliable information concerning strategic change decisions. Therefore, attempts to bring to the surface the common assumptions, expectations, and knowledge can be particularly useful before the design and implementation of a system (Orlikowski, et at, 1997;202). An important aspect of technology is to know enough about it so as the use it effectively. Technology can only be described and its significance appreciated in the context of its uses and its users (Orlikowski, et at, 1997;179). Cognitions and values of users for examining the underlying assumptions, expectations, and knowledge that people have about technology is of significant importance. Such interpretations of technology are referred to as technological frames (Orlikowski, et at, 1997;202) and are central to understanding technological development, use and change in organizations. We need to characterize the domains of knowledge that are brought to bear during information systems development, ranging from the system’s subject matter, the system’s subject world, to the system’s operational and development environments, the functional and nonfunctional requirements for the system as much as the generated code (Jarke, et al, 1992;p46). The organization’s internal and external environment offers tools for aiding the mapping process from requirements to design and then to implementation, also for representing decisions reached during the development process. 4.2 Training Negative reaction can be weakened or suspended if the people involved understand the purposes and benefits of the system and also know how to operate it. Training programs should have two targets: providing general understanding of the system ‘ideological training’ and acquiring technical skills to run it ‘operational training’ (Ahituv, et al, 1990;330). 4.3 Managing Change Developers should consider behavioral aspects of individuals – such as perception limitations (Ahituv, et al, 1990;p29). People have to perceive that preserving the status quo is not beneficial; second, they have to move to a revised state, finally the change has to be integrated with existing systems. User involvement in the process of change is essential to the success of a new system (Ahituv, et al, 1990;p33). People tend to approach the new in terms of the old, in the absence of other information, they will attempt to interpret it in terms of their existing technological frames, imposing assumptions, knowledge, and expectations (Newman, 1995;p19). Frames are cognitive structures or mental models that are held by individuals (Newman, 1995;p178). 4.4 Control and Documentation Combine design and programming progress together through preparation of certain worksheets that serve as design and programming aids, and they simultaneously constitute the appropriate documentation necessary for the system. In this way, documentation becomes a by-product of the development process; in fact, development cannot proceed without supporting documentation (Ahituv, et al, 1990;495). Information system documentation is probably one of the most prominent means of control. Proper documentation has a great influence on all aspects of control. It forces system developers to carefully examine each segment of the proposed system before its structure is final; it is a preventive measure. It may detect design errors while the system is still on the drawing board. Later during operation, it facilitates comparisons between real and expected outcomes. Thus, it is also a detective measure. It speeds up tracing an error, so it makes an efficient correction aid (Ahituv, et al, 1990;495). One approach to system development is known by the general term (CASE – Computer Aided System Engineering). It incorporates the documentations in the software that is used for the analysis and design of the information system. In such cases, the creation of documentation is almost automatic (Ahituv, et al, 1990;497). However, and interesting to note, according to market studies, the promise of CASE to integrate these tools seems far from fulfilled. A basic reason this failure is the lack of a common semantic basis for the integration (Jarke, et al, 1992;p3). 4.5 Class-Based Reengineering The class association is a grouping of classes that collaborate with one another to fulfill a business process (Newman, 1995;p6). 4.5.1 Core classes make up the operating system of the business. To use a mechanic al metaphor, core classes make up the organizations’ engine (Newman, 1995;p6). 4.5.2 Business-Process Classes represent the organization’s major set of business services and business operations. Business-process classes interact with the external environment to conduct the organizations business and request services from core and utility classes in order to fulfill business objectives (Newman, 1995;p6). Business-process classes are the operators or drivers of the organizations’ engine. 4.5.3 Utility classes provide generic services to both business-process and core classes. Utility classes provide services that are generally outside of the domain of the organization’s intrinsic business and provide the services that the organization requires in order to function efficient and avoid breakdown. Utility classes make up die lubrication system of the organization (Newman, 1995;p6). Core classes are the essential building blocks of the business, without which the business cannot function. 5. Conclusion Information systems are not installed in a vacuum. They are incorporated into living organizations that maintain common practices, habits and attitudes. Resistance to change is a dominant factor in nearly all information system implementation; this is not a typical phenomenon only in information systems, however, the fast advancement of computerized systems has increased the intensity of this problem. The information managed by information systems is about some segment on this world (the system’s application domain or subject world) and functions within the real world (production environment or usage world) and needs to support appropriate interfaces (Jarke, et al, 1992;p2). Information systems are long-lived and have to remain functional while the outside world and the roles of the system within this world change. All these considerations cannot be treated in ad hoc manner, but have to fit into a long term evolutionary framework (Jarke, et al, 1992;p2). By reengineering the structure of the information systems organization to reflect classes, the enterprise is required to answer it’s most existential of issues (Newman, 1995:p9). It is through this process alone that the organization is able to reshape itself and truly use information systems as a strategic weapon. THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF AN IT APPLICATION AND SUGGESTED STRATEGIES THAT COULD BE APPLIED TO OVERCOME NEGATIVE IMPACTS REPORT PLAN 1. Organizational Background 1.1 Products 1.2 Location 1.3 Market 1.4 IT Systems 2. Positive and Negative Impacts of the IT Application 3. Problem Identification 4. Suggested Strategies 4.1 Design and Implementation 4.2 Training 4.3 Managing Change 4.4 Control and Documentation 4.5 Class-Based Reengineering 4.5.1 Core Classes 4.5.2 Business Process Classes 4.5.3 Utility Classes 5. Conclusion Bibliography Ahituv, N & Neumann, S (1990) Principles of Information Systems for Management (Third Edition) USA: Wm. C. Brown Publishers Jarke, M., Mylopoulos J., Schmidt, J.W., Vassiliou, Y. (1992) DAIDA: An Environment for Evolving Information Systems. AMC Transactions of Information Systems, Vol. 10, No. 1 Newman, David S. (1995). Transforming Information Systems Organizations Through Class-Based Reengineering. Technium Inc.Object Magazine. Orlikowski, Wanda, J., Gash, Debra, C. (1994). Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. Technological Frames: Making Sense of Information Technology in Organizations. AMC Transactions on Information Systems, Vol 12, No. 2 Read More