Entries in the Category "MIDS 301"
MIDS301 - The SAP Project
Yesterday in class, we read a short play about the inner workings of a company written by our very own professor, Michel Avital. The play focused on the IT issues within a company that produced metallic alloys called "Metalica."
All departments of the company were using different proprietary legacy computer systems that did not communicate cross-department. In its current state, the sales department could not access current inventory numbers stored in the manufacturing department's computers or vice-versa. This was viewed by upper management as a target area where efficiency could be improved greatly; in fact, the head of systems development claimed that this shortcoming would be detrimental to the company's performance and possibly cause it to become uncompetitive in the long run.
The company decided to implement a system called SAP in order to standardize computer systems. Over the next months, the IT department moved quickly to install the new systems in the test department, a serivce center located in Hopewell, VA.
The results of the implementation after more than a year had passed were less than exciting. In fact, the general manager at the service center called it a "meltdown" and spoke with the head of systems development in a curt and accusatory manner. The director explained that only 16% of IT projects are executed without problems, while two thirds are abandoned eventually. While they did not want to be part of the failures, bumps in the road are expected and will be worked out as soon as they are recognized.
This is as far as we have reached in class discussion. Further reading has revealed that Metalica does take efforts to resolve the issues with the installation of the system, but the company will continue to wrestle with IT problems for some time to come.
The Standish Group statistic about IT project failures is one part of this writing that should be highlighted. On the surface, it is positively astonishing that only one-third of IT projects should ever succeed at all, let alone only a measly 16% be executed without long-term issues. Then again, when one thinks in the context of this paper - the growing, infantile IT market of the mid-1990s - most companies had legacy systems dating back to the 1980s and even the 1970s when computers were exclusively purpose-built and custom-installed as needed. This is exactly what happened in this company - funds were allocated to computerize certain databases when the need was recognized and it became cost-efficient to do so. This resulted in a patchwork of non-compatible systems that were never linked to each other nor did they have the built-in capability to do so. The architects of each individual system did not recognize the need for these networks to communicate with each other; perhaps most of the networks did not even exist when these systems were installed, in some cases. The task left before the IT department to standardize was for certain a daunting one.
MIDS301 9/25 - Groove Experience
Last week, our group ("MIDS Bloggers") formed for the express purpose of using Groove, had the opportunity to work together for the first time. Our task was to choose five restaurants, design a system to evaluate them, and finally rank them.
We primarily used the discussion board built into Groove for concrete advancements in group discussion and setting up the criteria. For more casual discussion and brainstorming, we used the instant-messaging feature. We also used the file co-editing feature for the creation of the final document.
We each nominated two restaurants and with discussion determined the top five from which we would draw our rankings: Mama Santa’s, Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, Shooter’s, and the hot dog stand on Adelbert. Our results through discussion ranked the restaurants in the following manner: 1. Mama Santa’s, 2. Chipotle, 3. Cheesecake Factory, 4. Shooter’s, and 5. the hot dog stand on Adelbert. The primary determinant was an overall ranking taking into account the combination between price and quality of food, followed by restaurant atmosphere and secondary determinants of proximity to campus.
Overall, this was a positive experience. I have never personally used any online networking or collaboration programs before and I was impressed by what could be done through this program, especially the discussion board and file sharing feature. The instant messaging feature, however, was clumsy and hard to use since every time one clicks "send," the window closes and all the previous correspondence in that particular conversaion is lost until the person on the other end sends a message back. After a while of dealing with this, we solved this problem by using AOL Instant Messenger, which has a much cleaner and easier to use interface.
Hopefully, in the future, I can find another use for Groove, as this program allowed for a very smooth functioning online group.
eBusiness and eBay
This week we had a few discussions on the nature of e-business and the supply chain. A chart illustrating the nature of all transactions between business and consumer was put up and we had a discussion on what specific kinds of transactions and examples of companies who engage in this sort of business.
Interestingly enough, it is very difficult to discern consumer to business (C2B) activities from business to consumer. Keeping the examples limited to online activity turned out to be quite difficult. Evidently, Priceline.com was given as an example of C2B activity. I was somewhat confused by this, I must admit, because even though one is able to name their own price on airline tickets, they are still purchasing these tickets from a business; therefore, it is a B2C activity regardless of how it is priced. More obvious examples of C2B activities are those of selling textbooks to businesses online. eBay-related activities are still not technically considered C2B activities because one must pay eBay for the service. I'd disagree with this statement, because one is not at any time selling any item to the entity eBay itself. eBay is only an intermediary, like the classified ads, by which sellers can find buyers without the use of expensive marketing activities. The small fee owed to eBay for the listing is a nearly insignificant portion of the total sale fee.
I have used eBay myself for making both personal sales and purchases as well as sales and purchases for a company I worked for over the summer. At this company we buy and sell used printing presses, and I was in charge of the eBay portion of the business, which accounted for about 25% of our total sales and purchases. When we bought presses on eBay from private parties and small printing businesses, we paid nothing to eBay; we only obtained the contact information of the seller, picked up the equipment through our own trucks and paid with our own business checks. This could be considered a C2B transaction when we purchased equipment from private parties. Small print shops, compared to the size of our company and the volume of machinery we dealt with, could almost be considered consumers. They are consumers of printing equipment, which we provide.
MIDS 301 - The First Post
I have now tapped my blog for use in classes, the first of which will be MIDS 301, "Introduction to Management Information Decisionmaking Systems." I have chosen to blog weekly as my project for the semester in order to familiarize myself with computer information technology.
My name is Christian Carson. I am an accounting major in my junior year, taking MIDS of course because it is required. I feel I have a head start ahead of my classmates because I have extensive experience in the field of computer technology, especially programming languages. I have opted not to apply my knowledge to write a website, however, because I dislike teamwork in a situation such as this where the chance that my teammates will be underqualified and unwilling to do work...especially when I do not know anyone in the class who have not already determined that they were grouping amongst themselves, leaving me to group with someone I do not know. Therefore, I will be blogging instead, practicing my reflective ability as well as my typing speed and perhaps increasing the likelihood that I will be writing personal entries in my blog as well, which is something I have made several attempts to do so far but have failed.
This past week we have been discussing the impact of computers on our daily lives. After engaging the class in a brainstorming exercise, we were truly able to see how heavily we rely upon computers. The first exercise was a hypothetical situation where all electronics stopped working. The feedback from the class was extremely negative, with images of doom and gloom. Images of hospitals shutting down causing the deaths of invalids, skyskrapers becoming positively uninhabitable due to shut down climate controls and other infrastructure and amenities coming to a slow screetching halt.
We also did a similar exercise where we thought of how our lives could be in 15 years when computing technology has vastly improved. As could be expected, quite the opposite came out of the class. Imagery of increased efficiency in everyday life and across the board were noted.
These exercises were somewhat enlightening to em as to how much I took computer technology for granted; however, I probably use fewer electronics in my day-to-day life than most other people my age, so some criteria would not apply to me as well as other students would perhaps fit. This however did not stop me from picking up on the main point of the class which was to let us know how much information technology impacts our everyday lives.