SP1: Identify the work system that is being analyzedThe corporate head quarters equipped with a mainframe computers which maintains the customer master file. There are 20 sales regions the entire have mini computers connected to the mainframe. The corporate head office maintains the customer master files which do order verification or rejection and sent to appropriate region’s mini computer.
The head office computer has consolidated customer account data, orders and billing data. Each customer is able to store and retrieve customer data in mini computer. The regional office maintains the reports of orders, rejections, invoices, customer accounts, and inquiries manually. The sales related data are updated by manager by calling to their sales persons. The data relating to sales, advertising expenses, promotion are also maintained at the regional office manually.
The present order processing system is time consuming and lots head counts. In the present system the sale person prepare the hard copy ticket manually to make an order. After preparation the order is placed by mail or fax to head office. The head office consists of 20 workers are involved in opening, sorting and entering the orders received from regional office. The daily order is total yogurt and related amount of yogurt related products for each center.
Once the orders are processed the information is transmitted from mainframe computers to the mini computers in regional office. The regional plant starts to process production according to the order ticket. Once the production plant finishes the production the details are sent to the shipping manager for delivery. The shipping manager assign to various transfer carriers from warehouse.P2: identify the problem or opportunities related to this work system.The increase in the sales have led to the company have higher increase in production as a result of the company have lots opportunities compared to its competitors.
If the company can organize its system in a way for quick processing of orders and to eliminating the bureaucracy it can be still the market leader and have good share. The company is currently facing the following problems related the system.• The head office takes order via mail or fax. If the fax is broken it can lead to delay in getting orders.
• Too much manually filled order ticket by sales persons brings more delays in order processing• Too much delays in order makes shipping delays which causes inventory problem since the nature of product itself less life time• It is taking 4 to 14 days to process a order depending on the mail delivery rate• Accounting discrepancies between the head office and regional offices.• Managers are not able get up to date information as they always have to contact the sales team for the information via telephone or mail.• The head quarters will not be able to get up to date information for decision making regarding sales, advertising expenses and promotion as they are held in regional offices manually.SP3: Identify factors that contribute to the problem or opportunities.Heatlhlite Yogurt Company is having a rapid increase in the turnover and this is a big opportunity. But still the company has some problems which have to be overcome to smooth order processing.
There are number of factors which are contributing to the current problem of the company. The communication between the head quarters and regional office is one of the problem can be identified as contributing. There is no real time processing. There are lots of manual oriented jobs both in head quarters and regional offices.SP4: Identify constraints that limit the feasible range of recommendationThe technology is being the main constraints which make limitations in recommendations.
The company does not want to make experiments in developing systems. The real problem of this company is usage of the technology that is not compatible with current trend. The present technology used in the company anyway not going to help for the future expansion of the turnover. So if the company wants to go for new system it is considering the real time solution not experiment.
