several it questions

1. The Ponsse put out the requirements for a new information system to improve the productivity in wood production and procurement chain as in the lecture slide 1.11.  The requirements set by the Ponsse include: 1) Estimate the demand, 2) Create cutting plan, 3) Produce a map of logging area and working instructions, 4) Email, 5) GPS positioning, 6) 3D simulator training.     

a. From the provided requirements, what is the fundamental concept that is reflected in the Ponsse requirements?  

From the provided requirements, the fundamental concept that can be reflected in the requirements of the ponsse is that it is the complete layout of the business of the wood production.

All these requirements are necessary and being made to build up the design for the particulars and it is first being done through simulation to know all the pending requirements and advantages and specially disadvantages into the business.

b. Where does each requirement from six Ponsse requirements above belong to the organization, management, or technology dimension?  Explain why the requirements you assigned should belong to one of three dimensions.

-Email - It belongs to technological dimension because; in order to get the information that when the sub task and task has done an email has to be thrown to the developer to verify it.

-Estimating demand - It belongs to organization dimension because quantity of the woods can be too much high or low. In case of low quantity needed, the organization can be in loss. The organization should be able enough to make the profit so that it can fulfill all it's as well as its employees’ requirements.

-Produce a map of logging area and working instructions - It belongs to management dimension because; before we have to do the task, we should get to know about that how to do the particular task. Whenever one task of cutting or finishing or accumulating or sending is done there is another task which have to be done after that task. Unless there is a proper layout that how and in which order certain tasks have to be done organization can't succeed.

-GPS positioning - It belongs to technological dimension because; GPS gives us the location for the maximum number of the trees present in that particular area. For the small area or area with a smaller number of trees, hopefully time will get waste of the organization.

-Creating cutting plan - It belongs to management dimension because;

different kind of cutting or we can say finishing is required as per demand of the customers. Unless or until we are not making a proper plan of its execution, certain task cannot be complete in the given time interval.

-3D simulator training - It belongs to technological dimension because; it is like an example for the organization or the client. This phase tells that under which circumstances of the above requirements the organization gain the profit. Before implementing the process in real life, organization can get the idea for the results of implementation under different circumstances and the other disadvantages if any.

c. What requirements for the management dimension would you add to measure the performances of wood production and overall business operation?  

-Here both 2nd and 3rd requirements of management dimension can enhance the performances of wood production and overall business operation.

1)Creating cutting plan and 

2) Produce a map of logging area and working instructions

By these steps, organization can save too much of the essential time which can be further used in same task or to do the different tasks and hence increasing the performance of the organization.

[Chapter 2 Global E-Business and Collaboration]

2. The Order Fulfillment Process, Figure 2-1, slide 2.6 of the lecture slides is an exemplary diagram for the business processes.  There are benefits to draw diagrams to dictate the order of the business processes and the responsibilities of the participating teams.  To make the diagram more useful for daily operation, what kind information can we add to the diagram?  (This kind of diagram can be fully implemented by computer software and can be used as an operational management tool.)  What would be the benefits by adding that additional information on the diagram?

Answer:

We can add more information on this diagram as much as we want or we need,

Such as stock control tab, order tracking tab, inventory, shipping, finance, service requests, warranty information.

[Chapter 4 Ethical and Social Issues]

3. As an employee, there are benefits and risks in using company computing resources for personal purposes such as pleasure, investment opportunity, personal interests, or family emergency.  The employee knows that visiting not-work related websites for pleasure is not right for the company, but it is rather hard to stay away from temptation.  

a.  Analyze this situation to check if this is ethically correct by following the procedure below and select what you would do in this situation.  

·  Identify facts – 

- Employees tend to use office computing resources for personal use as well.
- Sometimes using office resource for personal use might cause a threat to the office environment and production

·  Define dilemma – 

- Can we use the system for personal use or not?
- If yes, what type of websites? Links? Information? Does a firewall allow all websites?
- If no, is all external websites blocked? Is there a spy monitor? Is it blocked by a Firewall? Are websites being unauthorized or unprotected?

·  Identify high order values –

- Do not use office resources of personal use
- Restrict the use at the minimum if some urgent work needs to be performed
- Do not click suspicious links

·  Stakeholders – 

- Employees & Clients

· Options –

-Consequence- Ability to access other websites as well with no restriction or firewall

·  ces of options – 

- Company data leakage
- Virus injection
- Suspicious link clicking might install malware
- Pirated software issues

·  Your selection on the issue - 

- Do not use office resource for personal usage

b. If you need to use the company computing resource for a family emergency case, what would you do to avoid the troubles with your supervisor?  What would be appropriate supervisor’s guidance for the situation?  

-Get permission before using it. Make sure that you access HTTPS website. Make sure you do not click on any suspicious link or websites.

 

[Chapter 5 IT Infrastructure]

4. A company needs to build a new Information System for more efficient business operation.  The company considers whether the development work should be contracted out to an external system builder or they should use in-house capabilities to build it. 

a. If the company has determined to build a new Information System by in-house capabilities, what will be the justifications for the decision?

Price/budget is one of the important subjects for the decision makers, if the company does upgrade their IT infrastructure using internal capability will be cheaper than hiring 3rd party company.

Reliability / trustworthiness is another subject for IT department, if they hire a 3rd party company, they have to do really good background check for keeping their customers private information secure.

Efficiency is important for timely matter and convenience, hiring 3rd party company is less efficient than having IT department in the headquarters.

Outsourcing involves the transfer of responsibility from an organization to a supplier. This new arrangement is managed through a contract that may include one or more SLAs. The contract may involve financial penalties and the right to terminate if any of the SLAs metrics are consistently missed. Setting, tracking and managing SLAs is an important part of the outsourcing relationship management discipline. Specific SLAs are typically negotiated up front as part of the outsourcing contract and used as one of the primary tools of outsourcing governance.

If the company chose to outsource the IT upgrading work, topics should be included in the Service Level Agreement are

Type of service to be provided

The service's desired performance level, especially its reliability and responsiveness

Monitoring process and service level reporting

The steps for reporting issues with the service

Response and issue resolution time-frame

Repercussions for service provider not meeting its commitment

b. The biggest portion of the Total Cost of Ownership for an Information System is in the maintenance cycle.  The turnover rate of the IT staff is known to be very high.  What should be done to maintain the Information System without disruption when IT personnel are changed?

Management will identify and review network infrastructure access points and associated risks and vulnerabilities.The network topology will be maintained and will describe, at a minimum, the connection points, services, and hardware components to include connections (Internet, Intranet, Extranet, and Remote Dial-up), operating systems etc.