Essay: Info Systems & Organizational Productivity - Coffee Constructions Australia.

You have recently completed your Master of Project Management at RMIT and are now employed as a project director/manager at Coffee Constructions Australia. Coffee Constructions Australia is an old-style family based firm that has not embraced business productivity or automated/robotic construction technology. The firm has been having trouble managing the growing volume of projects and the Board of Directors has become very concerned about the firm’s reputation and future business opportunities. 

The extent of technology employed by the firm consists of Microsoft Project and the Microsoft Office suite of products and Gmail. All business functions are supported by either manual processes or simple use of office automation applications like Excel or Word.

Please refer to the brief in Appendix A of this document for further details on the company. Write a management
report that addresses:

− The business value proposition of CCA using best practice information systems,
− How the IS would support the various business functional areas of CCA, and
− How each information system would or could be used by the firm’s project managers in managing CCA’s projects.

Remember the audience is the senior (executive) leadership team who are NOT technology literate, so you should use appropriate business language and refrain from using project management, construction, or technical jargon

Australian Construction Industry Overview

Coffee Constructions Australia (CCA) is an Australian based organization that was set up in the year 1973. Automatic robotic/construction technology or business productivity is not yet included in the company architecture as of now. The company is currently facing issues with management of its projects and it is having a negative implication on the reputation of the firm and the associated business opportunities. Jim Coffee is the Chief Construction Executive of the company and has decided to invest in the information systems to resolve the current set of issues. The report includes the details of the information systems that the organization may use and the benefits that may be gained out of the same.

The Australian Construction Industry has a total value of AUD 150 Billion annually and the total GDP associated with the industry is 9%. The industry experienced three-month high in January, 2018 (Scutt, 2018). Information technology and systems are being widely used in the construction industry all across the globe.

Coffee Constructions Australia (CCA) is growing at a rapid scale. Automatic robotic/construction technology or business productivity is not yet included in the company architecture as of now. The company is currently facing issues with management of its projects and it is having a negative implication on the reputation of the firm and the associated business opportunities.

Best Practices for Construction Companies 

There are certain practices that the construction companies shall follow to make sure that the maximum productivity, revenues, and efficiency levels are achieved.

• Employees are the primary assets of any industry and company. The employees engaged with the construction companies shall be managed adequately by allocating them with the skill sets as per the efficiencies and knowledge. (Novotny, 2017)
• Health and safety of the employees is one of the most significant aspects that shall be adhered to. It is because the construction workers and resources are exposed to the risks that may have extremely negative implications. There may be health and safety risks that may result in permanent or temporary injuries, loss of life, and likewise. Risk management must be the strong policy implemented in the company.
• Quality assurance and control is one of the practices that shall be followed by the construction companies so that the quality of the processes and outcomes are continuously improved upon.
• Sustainable construction is one of the practices that shall be adhered to. It must be kept in to consideration the environmental and energy consumptions and impacts, sustainable utilisation of the resources, and conduction of the activities as per the quality parameters (Constructionworld, 2018).

Implications for Information Systems 

There are implications for the information systems that are associated. The implementation of the information systems in the organization may lead to introduction of additional risks. There may be implementation issues, maintenance errors, and security attacks that may come up. There may be scenarios wherein the implementation of the information system may not be done adequately. This may lead to increased implementation and setup costs. There will be maintenance that will be involved with the system that may lead to certain issues and costs. Security is one of the areas wherein there may be security risks and attacks that may emerge. The information and data sets may be put at risk. All of such mechanisms may lead to negative implications on the organization in which the information system is implemented (Ramiller and Pentland, 2009).

The information systems may have positive implications in terms of cost-savings, increased collaboration, better accuracy, better flexibility and scalability, easier decision-making, faster processing speed, and a lot more. The data sets are collaborated and integrated with each other that may assist in problem-solving and decision-making processes. The organization will also have positive implications as an outcome (Alter, 2008). The use of information systems will assist in enhanced productivity and efficiency of the resources, better revenues and market shares for the organization.

Issues faced by Coffee Constructions Australia

Benefits of Future State 

The introduction and use of information systems in CCA will lead to automation of the business operations which will enhance the business productivity and accuracy. There will also be benefits in terms of revenues, profits, and market shares.

Business Value Proposition of CCA

The information systems that will be used at CCA will assist in the decision-making processes as the data will be combined in a central repository. The real-time and archived data sets will be available for the enhancement of operational efficiencies and customer services yielded by CCA. The systems will always remain available which will assist in the communication processes. The construction processes and activities will also be automatized and the project management activities will be streamlined. The main problem with CCA currently is the limited automation in the construction activities and the project management activities (Lee and Green, 2015). These will be enhanced.

Support of IS for Business Functional Areas of CCA

Use of Information Systems 

There are several information systems that are present and shall be used in CCA. Some of these information systems are Project Portfolio Management Systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems, Decision-Making & Decision Support Systems, Finance Systems, Human Resource Management Systems, Data Warehouse/BI, Electronic Documents & Records Management System (EDRM), Knowledge Management Systems, Customer Relationship Management System (CRM), and Sales/Marketing System. The automated modules and components are not yet included in the organization. The business productivity and automated construction activities are not included (Love, 2004). CCA is currently expanding at a rapid scale and the continuation of the execution of the business activities with the current architecture will not be able to cope up with the current procedures.

Recommendations & Conclusion 

It is recommended that the information systems that are installed in CCA are done in a phased approach. There shall be adequate planning and analysis that shall be involved before selecting the information system to be implemented. The planned values and processes shall then be applied to carry out the implementation of the information systems. The use of such an approach will eliminate the probability of implementation errors and will automatically bring down the implementation costs. The security risks and attacks shall be managed and handled by integrating the systems with the security protocols and controls. There are technical security controls that shall be used to avoid the issues of information breaches, data loss, malware attacks, flooding attacks, and likewise. Administrative controls and policies shall also be used. Jim Coffee and other managerial resources must take include experts and consultants at the time of implementation of these systems in the organization.

The real-time and archived data sets will be available for the enhancement of operational efficiencies and customer services yielded by CCA. The systems will always remain available which will assist in the communication processes. The construction processes and activities will also be automatized and the project management activities will be streamlined. The introduction and use of information systems in CCA will lead to automation of the business operations which will enhance the business productivity and accuracy. There will also be benefits in terms of revenues, profits, and market shares.

References

Alter, S. (2008). Defining information systems as work systems: implications for the IS field. European Journal of Information Systems, 17(5), pp.448-469.

Constructionworld (2018). 6 Examples of Construction Accounting Best Practices - Construction World. [online] Construction World. Available at: https://www.constructionworld.org/construction-accounting-best-practices/ [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

Craig, N. and Sommerville, J. (2006). Information management systems on construction projects: case reviews. Records Management Journal, 16(3), pp.131-148.

Lee, L. and Green, E. (2015). Systems Thinking and its Implications in Enterprise Risk Management. Journal of Information Systems, 29(2), pp.195-210.

Love, P. (2004). Industry-centric benchmarking of information technology benefits, costs and risks for small-to-medium sized enterprises in construction. Automation in Construction, 13(4), pp.507-524.

Novotny, R. (2017). 6 Best Practices for Managing Construction Projects - eSUB Construction Software. [online] eSUB Construction Software. Available at: https://esub.com/6-best-practices-for-managing-construction-projects/ [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

Ramiller, N. and Pentland, B. (2009). Management Implications in Information Systems Research: The Untold Story. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 10(6), pp.474-494.

Scutt, D. (2018). Australia's construction sector is booming in early 2018. [online] Business Insider Australia. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-construction-boom-2018-2018-3 [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].

Son, H., Hwang, N., Kim, C. and Cho, Y. (2015). Construction professionals’ perceived benefits of PMIS: The effects of PMIS quality and computer self-efficacy. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 20(2), pp.564-570.

Yu, J., Lee, H. and Kim, W. (2006). Evaluation Model for Information Systems Benefits in Construction Management Processes. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 132(10), pp.1114-1121.