IT Strategies This IT department’s strategic goals have been updated to better reflect Rusty Rims’ (RR) over all mission. These changes include:
Implementing an inventory tracking system. This business strategy aligns with RR’s plan to provide warehouse services to its customers. By implementing an inventory system customers will be able to keep track of how much stock they have stored in the warehouse.
Switch to Virtual machines instead of physical servers. This internal business strategy aligns with over all mission to reduce costs by 5% to fund new projects, such as providing warehouse services to customers. In addition, this will reduce manpower needed to upkeep servers and free them to work on other projects.
Simplify data entry method for maintenance information. This business strategy aligns with RR’s goal to improve the maintenance cycle and reduce its effect on business operations. In addition this will insure RR is in compliance with the new federal requirement to preform vehicle safety checks every 10,000 miles.
Automate the route planning process. This business strategy aligns with RR’s goal to improve the percentage of loaded miles.
IT Portfolio
The IT road map below outlines the projects and their time lines that this IT department is working on. The Accurate Financials project will be complete in two weeks, the mobile marketing app and the management reporting system will be completed in two months, and the proposed driver hour tracking system project
To be successful in today’s business environment, an organization must be able to perform certain fundamentals accurately and efficiently. One of these elements is having an effective and efficient Inventory System Management (ISM). ISM enables one to have the knowledge of where his or her inventory is at every step of the way. This allows one to better interact with consumer and make sales. Choosing the right ISM can lead and pave the ground work for future business success and profitability.
After careful assessment of the infrastructure and inventory systems used at Riordan Manufacturing, our team has identified these systems are outdated and unable to effectively manage the day to day processing. As a global leader in the manufacturing of plastic products, the performance and reliability of the infrastructure is crucial to the continued success and growth of your company’s operations. Therefore, our solution to uplift the infrastructure and launch of the Riordan Global Operations System (R.G.O) a new platform for supporting inventory and managing customer orders . Our system will enable your employees and customers see
The Home Depot Rapid Deployment Center’s inventory tracking system is based on a star network configuration. Each employee uses a Radio Frequency (RF) scanning gun to create labels placed on all inventory as it is received into inventory. Then, the labels on the inventory are scanned and located to predetermined locations in the building, tracking the inventory’s movement through the building. This tracking ensures that no inventory is lost while transitioning from receiving until it is placed on the correct trailer for shipment to our stores. Another function of the RF guns are to track the work being performed by the employees to compare against a predetermined set of standards. This data tells a story of how effectively each person is completing
Kudler Fine FoodsUniversity of PhoenixSmith Systems Consulting (SSC) has been contracted by Kudler Fine Foods to develop a frequent shopper program. Kudler Fine Food's goal with the frequent shopper program is to develop customer loyalty and penetrate new market shoppers while tracking their behavior. Smith Systems Consulting has been able to design, host, develop, maintain, support and program systems development for their clients since 1984. Smith Systems Consulting employs over 350 employees and has generated over $45 million in revenue. Smith Systems Consulting was contracted to develop a frequent shopper program by developing a hardware platform, network connections, software development tools, database information, user interfaces,
Office Depot uses multiple inventory strategies to order products. 90% to 95% of goods are ordered through automatic replenishment, manual replenishment, pull replenishment, and global sourcing are also used depending on channel, volume, velocity and cost. (Office Depot, 2015). The accuracy of the inventory from both a DC and store perspective is critical to the organizations success. Heizer and Render (2014) state that record accuracy is a prerequisite to inventory management, production scheduling, and sales. Accuracy is maintained by either periodic or perpetual systems (p.479). In Office Depot, the stores are required to cycle-count technology items such as laptops, desktops computers, and tablets five days a week. Discrepancies are entered in the system and bounced off the local DC’s on-hand inventory discrepancies. Office Depot is a “blind receive” organization meaning the stores receive pallets of products and simply unwrap and put them away. The only way a store knows if a product is missing is through the cycle-count program. This system was put into place to speed up the receiving process and eliminate unnecessary steps once the product was received at the store level. Office Depot conducts a full physical inventory once a year through a third party and trues up the inventory shrink at this time.
The main stakeholders involved with this project will include the following departments and personnel. The Finance and Accounting division will participate in the organizing the General Ledgers and monthly income statements. The Sales, Marketing and Inventory divisions will participate in communicating the needs and processes of ordering, material supply, and product delivery. The IT department will make recommendations based on department needs and corporate demands to improve eficientcy and advance the current computing
Wal-Mart currently has one of the most advanced inventory management systems due to their use of RFID tracking capabilities. Every product is equipped with a radio frequency identification tag, which identifies the location and type of product in the warehouse. As the product leaves the warehouses, there are readers in place at the door that automatically recognize which products are leaving and entering the warehouse. The benefit of this is that it limits the use of employees better employed elsewhere and has impeccable accuracy, much more accurate and faster than if employees were to take inventory. The service that our product provides is to take this current technology and to implement it at a grocery stores as well as retail in the
point of sale system. The POS system is a perpetual inventory counting method that electronically records items immediately upon their point of sale (Stevenson, 2015, pg. 552). In other words, as a cashier scans a customer 's groceries, each scanned item is automatically recorded in the system and deducted from the store’s inventory. Implementing a point of sale would benefit a business’s inventory management function in several ways. First, the POS system will provide managers with a continuous flow of updated information (Stevenson, 2015, pg. 552). As a result, the information will provide more accuracy when used for sales forecasts and analysis, which substantially affect inventory decisions. Continuously, this inventory system would also allow greater flexibility in the sense that it can be wirelessly linked to the main company’s inventory system, creating a network of the company’s inventory systems. The POS system is capable of tracking many operations at once and can be modified according to management’s needs (MacCarthy, n.d.). This flexibility would undoubtedly benefit a large company like Wegman’s with many store locations. Lastly, the system is able to help businesses maintain a high level of customer service. Because the system gives customers a receipt with the price and quantity of each item purchased, the customer is able to see exactly what he or she purchased. This practice
Evaluate the role their inventory plays in the company’s performance, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
Based on Service Request SR-rm-001, the processes of inventory management and control at Riordan Manufacturing were evaluated. Four aspects of Riordan Manufacturing’s inventory management and control require improvements. These aspects of business are improvements to automation, inventory control and error reduction in the inventory management, as well as an overall inventory storage cost reductions. Furthermore, each part of the inventory management and control process requires a single unifying method to deliver a solution using computer systems.
Database systems that will help them keep track of products availabilities. This will also help management to make better decision when to entice customers with discount sales and other technics to help drive down their inventory items.
• Meet regularly with other departments’ heads- Sales- HR-Accounting-Marketing-Customer Service-Institutional trading-R&A-Client Services to communicate IT strategies and projects. Gather feedback from other departments regarding current needs. Be sure that all departments are aware of an IT strategy and that all future projects and initiatives must fall within this strategy.
The Volkswagen of America: Managing IT Priorities case study describes the efforts of the US subsidiary of Volkswagen AG (VWAG) – Volkswagen of America (VWoA) – to arrive at a new process for setting IT funding priorities and deciding on what projects to fund. Dr. Uwe Matulovic, the new Chief Information Officer (CIO) of VWoA, has a dilemma in that peers from the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) have been openly hostile and critical of the new prioritization process, particularly in regards to the lack of funding for high priorities for their areas of the company, and have pressurized him “to insert an unfunded project (or two) into the IT department’s work plans” (p. 1). Dr. Matulovic position is particularly challenging as more than 40 projects have been proposed for IT, with funding requirements totaling $240m, when a budget of only $60m has been approved by VWAG.
Although they have invested tremendously in this new technology, the company will reap tremendous benefits from its services, which will cut the direct labor costs and ensure that the business processes continue to deliver the expected results. Indeed, the automated system is likely to produce more precise and accurate information than the human inspectors are (Donald, 2010).
Nowadays, in an era that has advanced technology and a place in the world. Everything can be linked only at your fingertips in the times of rapidly developing with the sophisticated technology of today. Therefore, an inventory system is also not lagging behind in introducing a method of keeping an inventory data systematically and safely. The system plays a very important role in improving the competitiveness of a business. Usually, organizations today face too many challenges to achieve the cost, speed and reliability. Efficient inventory system really help in order to make sure the store’s performance and data record is always in good condition and secured from abusers. The system basically to ease the admin to manage the