BUSM4619 Information Systems Management For Coffee Construction

Introduction

The information system or IS is the organized system that helps in collecting, organizing, storing and finally communicating information (Christopher 2016). It is the group of elements, which interact with one another for the purpose of producing relevant and important information. Several types of hardware, software, business procedures, business functionalities and data are combined together within the IS and this is being utilized for the increment of management, effectiveness and efficiency of that particular company. The information system is completely automatic and is also referred to as the computerized information system (Monczka et al. 2015). The dissemination of information and data is extremely easier with the presence of this system.

The following report outlines a brief discussion on the management of information system for the popular organization of Australia, namely Coffee Construction Australia or CCA. This particular private organization is mainly into civil and building engineering business. They have employed the Senior Project Manager to understand the impact of information system within their business. Relevant details will be provided in this report regarding CCA organization. 

Discussion

Brief Idea of the Case Study

Coffee Constructions Australia is a private organization for building and civil engineering business. This company started its journey in 1973 in Melbourne. In the year of 1980, this organization was given award for the significant deal of completing the regional art centre. The centre comprised of 490 seated theatre as well as 220 seated performing art space. They gained both popularity and experience with this contract and became one of the most prominent organizations in Australia. Gradually they have expanded their business in the offshore within the Pacific area with fewer projects that are completed within thw Western Samoa as well as in the Papua New Guinea. They even established a Queensland office in Brisbane in 2000 and many other popular projects. Recently, the Chief Construction Executive, Jim Coffee has employed Senior Project Manager for implementing information system within their business to gain more competitive advantages in the organization. They have decided to implement supply chain management in the business so that their business strategies could be easily aligned.

Supply Chain Management

The main goal of this information system is to focus on the internal data. The information system explicitly eradicates the importance of external data and hence is termed as one of the most important and significant or the safest requirement for any specific organization (Seuring 2013). Information system comprises of several important and significant functions that are useful for any business. The first and the foremost advantage of this information system is that it helps in improving the communications system and even manages the various operations. Moreover, with the proper implementation of an information system in any specific organization, the entire procedure of decision making becomes extremely easier. This is mainly because the process of selecting an appropriate alternative is much easier with this particular technology. Other important benefits of the information system include easy storages of records and confidential data (Ahi & Searcy 2013). It provides a safe and secured database that could easily store the data without any type of problem.

There are various kinds of these information systems such as the transaction processing systems or TPS, the decision support systems or DSS, the management information systems or MIS and finally expert systems or ES (Hugos 2018). The major categories of information system are the supply chain management or SCM, project portfolios management or PPM, knowledge management or KM, enterprise mobile management or EMM, business intelligence system or BIS and finally extranet as well as intranet. The Senior Project Manager of Coffee Constructions Australia has selected this supply chain management as one of the major category of this information system within their business (Brandenburg et al. 2014).

The SCM or supply chain management would be stated as the management of the major flow of several services and goods for involving the storage and movement of the raw materials of the WIP inventories as well as of the exhausted materials from the significant point of origin to the point of consumptions (Wisner, Tan & Leong 2014). The interlinked or the interconnected channels, node businesses and even the channels subsequently combine within the products or services’ provision that is being needed by the end customers in the supply chains. This supply chain management would also described as the proper designing, planning, or execution, and controlling as well as monitoring the activities of supply chain with the major objective or goal to create the net value, to synchronize the supply as per demand, to measure overall performance, to build the competitive infrastructure and even to leverage the worldwide logistics (Dekker et al. 2013).

The practice of SCM eventually draws major areas of systems engineering, logistics, information technology, operations management, industrial engineering and many more. The integrated approach is important for the better competitive advantages in the organization (Pagell & Shevchenko 2014). The internal integration and the transparency or visibility is represented easily and promptly. Since, this supply chain management substantially encompasses the proper planning or execution of the processes, the proper flow of financial capital, information and materials is required to be optimized. 

Features and Functions of Supply Chain Management in CCA

This SCM is the respective integral procedure within the variety of industrial sector (Zhu, Sarkis & Lai 2013). The subsequent growth and development of the IT or information technology has hence led to the significant development of several important and significant software programs, which would be supporting the entire process of supply chain management. The major product of this SCM process is the supply chain management software (Hazen et al. 2014). This particular process of the respective SCM comprises of suppliers, and manufacturers, warehouses, stores as well as customers. The organization of Coffee Constructions Australia would be getting some of the major features and functions by deploying this particular category of information system. This software of the SCM is the proper assortment of these software tools, which could be solely utilized for the purpose of completing the various types of business processes as well as supply chain operations (Golicic & Smith 2013). The main operations of the supply chain are balance between the inconsistency within supply and demand and the electronic trading between the partners of supply chain.

The major features and functions that the organization of Coffee Constructions Australia or CCA would be getting from the SCM are as follows:

1. i) Processing the Customer Requirements: The first and the foremost feature of this supply chain management is that it helps to process the customer requirements. Since, it helps in enhancing the overall speed of the customer requirement processing; CCA would be benefitted (Tseng & Chiu 2013). The checking for the availability of raw materials, manufacturing of products and finally passing these products to the respective logistics team are the major advantages that CCA would be getting from supply chain management.
2. ii) Inventory Management: The second significant feature of the SCM is that it helps in managing the inventory of the specific organization. The managers of Coffee Constructions Australia could utilize SCM for efficiently managing their quantity of the stocked goods (Govindan et al. 2014). They could also manage the other concerns of inventory like asset management, future inventories, replenishment lead time and finally price forecasting.

iii) Purchase Order Processing: The next significant and noteworthy feature or function of this supply chain management for this organization of Coffee Constructions Australia is that the purchase order processes are completely automated. Hence the effort and time are reduced to a high level (Mathiyazhagan et al. 2013). Coffee Constructions Australia could even track their products easily and promptly.

1. iv) Supplier Relationship Management: The proper management as well as strategic planning of each and every supplier interaction could be easily accomplished by undertaking the help of supply chain management in Coffee Constructions Australia.
2. v) Managing the Warehouses: Another popular and noteworthy feature of this supply chain management for this organization of Coffee Constructions Australia is that it helps in managing the warehouses easily (Wang & Cullinane 2015). The specific movement and storage of the products are tracked with this particular information system.

Thus, supply chain management is extremely vital for the organization of Coffee Constructions Australia and it properly aligns to the organization’s business functional areas and operations.  

Supply Chain Management for Improving Business Operations

Supply chain management is quite important and significant for any type of business operations as it reduces the major complexities of the business. The organization of Coffee Constructions Australia could easily improvise their business operations if they would be utilizing this particular category of information system (Winter & Knemeyer 2013). The effective SCM would be majorly responsible for controlling the total expenses of the business and even for ensuring the efficiency. The point of origin of the raw materials of every component by the significant procedure of manufacturing or even the delivery to the respective consumer is checked by this supply chain management.

The organization of Coffee Constructions Australia could improve their business operations by the following advantages of supply chain management system.

1. i) Higher Rate of Efficiency: This particular organization would be more effective as well as efficient as the SCM allows proper incorporation of the product innovation strategies as well as integrated logistics (Beske & Seuring 2014). Hence, the demands of the customers are easily predicted by the users. The economy fluctuations are also properly adjusted with this category of information system.
2. ii) Inventory Buffers: The second important and significant advantage of supply chain management that would advantageous for the organization of Coffee Constructions Australia is the inventory buffering. There is always a major viability for the customer’s spending nature (Fredendall & Hill 2016). It refers to the fact that all the businesses should take up the charge to manage the inventories in such a manner that could eventually minimize the holding costs and hence providing proper flexibility for meeting the overall demands of the customers. When this inventory is falling short, this business could also pay overtime for the purpose of producing more products.

iii) Mitigation of Risks: The next noteworthy as well as vital benefit of the SCM for the company of Coffee Constructions Australia is that it helps in mitigating the various risks within the business processes. Due to the ability of risk management, the major systems of the supply chain management could subsequently identify all the critical risk factors within their business (Dyckhoff, Lackes & Reese 2013). Whenever they are concerned regarding the product quality or compliance, they could eventually take the core help of supply chain management for this proper mitigation of risks.

1. iv) Optimal Shipping Options: Another important benefit of supply chain management that would be much effective for Coffee Constructions Australia is that it provides optimal shipping options for the users (Wang & Cullinane 2015). Since, it is a building and civil engineering business, a proper shipping plan is mandatory for them to gain effectiveness or efficiency and even for reducing the overall costs.
2. v) Minimizing Delays: Deadlines are considered as one of the major requirements in any specific contract or project. Hence, if the deadlines are not met properly, the customers might get offended and the brand name of the company would be solely affected. A proper supply chain is responsible for reducing all the delays and such issues could be resolved easily (Beske & Seuring 2014). The late shipments from the hold ups on the production lines, vendors and even from the logistical errors would be implementing the supply chain management for avoiding these issues.
3. vi) Reducing Overhead Costs: Supply chain management is also responsible for reducing the overhead costs to great level and hence the organization can gain cost effectiveness. Coffee Constructions Australia is a popular building and civil engineering business and hence it is important for them to reduce the overhead costs; however the price and quality of the final product is not changed at all.

Supply Chain Management for Managing Projects 

The connections of the computerized systems, hardware or software are together combined together to form this information system (Mathiyazhagan et al. 2013). Several types of information systems are present in the technological world, like operation support systems, management information systems, executive information systems or EIS and decision support systems or DSS. The Senior Project Manager of the organization of Coffee Constructions Australia has selected the supply chain management as the major category of information system for their business to manage their projects or contracts. It is a building and civil engineering private business and hence the contracts or the projects should be executed perfectly for gaining competitive advantages (Govindan et al. 2014). The supply chain is extremely vital for incrementing the supplies within the business. The various complexities of the project are easily resolved without any type of problem or issue.

This supply chain management is responsible for tackling three major constraints of a project, which are cost, time and scope.

1. i) Cost: This is the first and the most important and significant constraint of project management. Each and every project has its own budget, which refers to that cost that the client is willing for paying for their deliveries of his newer products or services. When the total expense of this project gets reduced, it is required to reduce the scope of the project and then increment the time (Tseng & Chiu 2013). Project budget helps to understand the position and standard of the customer and how much the customer could pay for the project. When the customer has made the payment, the organization or the contractor is bound to do the project according to the customer’s choice. If supply chain management is utilized within the project, it is evident that the project will never incur huge costs.
2. ii) Time: The second constraint of project management is time. Deadlines are extremely important for all projects and they should be delivered on time. When the project’s total time gets minimized, either the expense is incremented or the project scope is being reduced (Golicic & Smith 2013). When SCM is involved within the project, the overall management of these products and services is much easier and hence this issue is being resolved easily.

iii) Scope: The final project constraint is scope. The project scope should be defined and understood properly right from the beginning. When this scope of the project is increased, either the cost or the time is incremented (Hazen et al. 2014). SCM could easily define the scope of any project without any type of complexity as the supplies of the project are managed here.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that that the information system is the significant collection of several pieces of equipment that are solely included within the major dissemination of confidential data or information. It is the basic computer system, which even describes the environmental controlling system or telephone switching. This information system includes the resources for any type of processed or shared information and even the people, who are managing that specific system. Some of the major requirements are present for these information systems. The decision support system helps in making the decisions easily and promptly for all companies. The executive information system is extremely useful to examine the business trends and hence the users are allowed for quickly accessing the custom strategic information for better competitive advantages. The above report has properly outlined the case study of CCA, where supply chain management is being selected. Moreover, proper details are also provided for aligning the business strategies of this particular organization in Australia. The final part of the report has described about the assistance of SCM for management of the projects.

References

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