Individual Office Due To Customer Orders example essay topic

BSA/400 DIANE M. ROBLES TABLE OF CONTENTS Project Scope 2 Work Team 4 Project Schedule 6 Determining Requirements: Methodologies Used 7 Current State of Existing Systems 9 Existing Problems 13 Current System Costs 14 Performance Matrix 19 Works Cited 20 Appendix A 21 PROJECT SCOPE - CDL Entertainment, Inc. is a worldwide company with offices in the United States, Europe, Japan, and South America. The company engages in the development of audio and video special effects for the entertainment and advertising industry. Although the company is a rather large company consisting of approximately 1,000 employees, the offices are not networked causing a need to improve communication with one another. In today's technology world, this has become a major downfall for CDL to sustain a competitive edge in a very ruthless industry.

The management at CDL needed to determine if networking all of their offices was a viable solution to the problem or if there were other alternatives to the problem. The problem CDL Entertainment faced was the company was incurring excess costs associated with the current computer systems located at each location and the current business processes used at each office. As the project team reviewed the current situation, it was determined each office had a loss of nearly 20% of its projected annual revenue due to poor turnaround time and missed client deadlines (this is discussed in more detail in the Current System Costs section beginning on page 14). As an example of this, one of CDL's customers, JPR Incorporated, decided to discontinue doing business with the company after more than a ten-year relationship. The reason for this was due to another missed deadline on January 13, 2002.

This was the eighth deadline missed, after missing seven previous deadlines. The consequences of CDL Entertainment missing this deadline caused JPR Incorporated to lose a major contract with Time Warner. The problem occurred when CDL Enterprises was to provide necessary audio and visual equipment to JPR Incorporated to complete a major production shoot of an upcoming movie in production negotiations with Time Warner. CDL did not meet this deadline due to the equipment being held up in the shipping department at the Japan location. Several methods used when reviewing the cost implications and accurate cost projections of the company by the project team were through the use of surveys, interviews, and company documentation such as reports, records, and correspondence.

These records provided additional information on lost revenue concerning mail and shipping charges (regular and express), faxes, phone charges, churn, rebates, and discounts. Through the research conducted of mail records, such as the electronic mail posting machine and invoices from express mail companies such as Federal Express and UPS, the project team established each office was spending over $2,000 a month in shipping expenses, which equated to be between 20-30 packages per week (specifics are discussed later in the Current System Costs section located on page 14). Faxing costs were determined also by reviewing printed reports from each office's fax machine that explicated monthly costs of long distance faxes of over $100 dollars a month for each office. This equated to about 78 faxes monthly per office at a rate of 1.3 cents per fax. Phone charges were also reviewed through company phone records discovering the expense to each office on a monthly basis was roughly $1500. Upon further investigation, as explained later, phone charges were about 10%, or $150 higher, than what the company would have liked, due to unnecessary phone calls required to customers as a result of the failures of the current system (i. e., unsatisfied customers, shipment delays, etc.

). To help alleviate dissatisfied customers and churn, the company also was losing revenue in rebates and discounts given to dissatisfied customers. This information was obtained through customer service records of rebates and discounts. On an average, each office was spending approximately 2.5% of its annual revenue towards rebates and discounts. This equated to each office having provided about $25,000 annually in rebates and discounts, or for all practical purposes, about 250 customers were receiving $200 each in rebates and / or discounts. During the analysis process, many areas required a definitive examination to clearly identify the situation.

First and foremost, an experienced and skilled project team was required for the project. The team needed to create a definitive schedule and accurate budget of the analysis process of the current problem. The team also was responsible for determining what the specific objectives were of a proposed solution. All procedural methods and system capabilities at every location within the company were analyzed by the team to ascertain the specific needs of each office, and if the solution would be implemented in all offices or only specific locations. WORK TEAM - CDL Enterprises, Inc. organized a team of individuals to head the systems analysis of the current situation and to be responsible for making a recommendation for the proposed solution. The team comprised of the following individuals: Sr. Staff Consultant - As a partner of the company, this person was responsible for getting the project started.

The senior staff consultant was responsible for conducting the initial major research of the project to determine if a problem truly existed with the company. The consultant was then relied upon during and after the systems analysis to research and pattern a template of the development of the project. The key focus of the senior staff consultant was to improve the current systems to generate business and improve customer relations. This person had over 25 years experience in the IT industry, of which 18 years were directly related to acting as IT consultant for CDL Entertainment. Project Manager - This person was responsible for managing the systems analysis project from start to finish. The project manager's key obligations to the project were in organizing a team for the project, analyzing what needed to be accomplished, research of the current situation, and then planning and developing of possible solutions, as well as the establishment of management of a budget for the project.

The project manager on this project had over 20 years experience with program analysis and related projects in systems analysis. The manager's experience ranged from extensive areas in project management and planning, to technical experience in Windows 2000 Server, NT, QA, SAP, Security, Siebel, SQL Server, Sybase, Tech Sales, Tech Writer, Telephony, UNIX, Visual Basic, Web, Windows, Wireless, and XML. Project Leader - The project leader assisted the project manager with key responsibilities of the project, and acted as the supervisor to other personnel involved in the project and acted as liason between the project manager and company personnel. The project leader had approximately 12 years experience in a supervisory role and project planning. Special skills the leader was able to contribute to the project was experience with Doors, Rational Rose, Microsoft Project, as well as many other project related tools and knowledge. System Analysts - The team comprised of five systems analysts with each having approximately 7-10 years experience in analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation of systems and software.

The analysts on the team had skills in defining and evaluating operational business processes based upon business requirements and best practices. They also all had experience in recommending and documenting solutions to requirement gaps and standard functionality suggestions to various systems. The experience, skills and knowledge of the project team all aided in the support of the successful systems analysis of this vitally important project at CDL Entertainment. PROJECT SCHEDULE - After the project team was selected, a work plan needed to be implemented.

This predefined project schedule acted as a key to the successful analysis of this project (see Appendix A). It also prevented any oversight of tasks that needed to be performed during each stage of the project. To begin, the total time needed to complete a thorough systems analysis throughout the company needed to be determined. In order to do this, the work plan needed to be thought out carefully and meticulously. The first plan of action was to have an initial staff meeting to discuss the deliverables, cost, and performance matrix of the project. During this meeting, a baseline plan of implementation was determined and initial task responsibility was delegated to individuals on the project team.

Based on this initial meeting and review of the project deliverables, it was concluded that a complete accurate system analysis of the current situation within the company would need approximately six months to complete. Since the management at CDL Entertainment, Inc., has defined this project as "extremely high in priority", a six-month analysis period seemed to be a minimal time constraint to the company and was approved immediately. The team then went on to determine the dates to begin the creation of questionnaires, interviews, how to obtain various in-house documentation, and other research tools to be used during the analysis process. DETERMINING REQUIREMENTS: METHODOLOGIES USED It was now necessary for the project team to determine the most effective way of collecting data to try and circumscribe a resolution to the existing problem. The collection of this information was at the core of the company's systems analysis. Talking to the users individually and as groups helped the team compile vital data on the existing processes that actually affected systems at each location.

The following table indicates the data collected in reference to the system areas and processes most employees from all locations worldwide believed to be part of the problem as a whole. Description Individuals Group Problems with shipping products expeditiously 53% 47% Problems with access to data needed from other locations 37% 33% Problems with Different area processes and procedures 8% 12% System problems - response time and inability to run concurrently with other systems within the company 2% 8% Table 1. Results of individual and group interviews Both the individual and group interviews also allowed the project team to gain clarification as to identifying possible solutions to improve communication within the company. Individual interviews helped the team with knowing particular issues and requirements that were needed by each office, and more specifically, by each department or area within each office. Group interviews allowed the team to mirror the synergies and contrasts among the system requirements. Another method the project team used to find out about the current system was through reviewing documentation regarding the current systems and business processes in each office.

By reviewing documentation within each office the team was able to ascertain reported issues, policies, rules, etc. pertaining to each location. Types of documentation reviewed included business forms that provided recordings of orders, written procedures, and reports that provided information on certain data over a determined time period. Documentation provided concrete examples of data and information within each office and the processes used. For example, reported issues discovered in the Arizona office primarily focused on the problems within the shipping department and the inability to provide more expedient service. In comparison, the primary reported issues in the New Jersey office focused more on the inability to access customer data from other locations. Also, the policies varied from one location to the next.

It was discovered the policy for installing new software on a desktop in the Los Angeles office was rather lacking, as opposed to the same policy in the Japan office. An employee working in the Los Angeles office simply completed a form indicating what software he or she wished to install onto his or her desktop and the necessity for the software. Once approved, that person installed the software his or herself. The Japan office operated very differently concerning the same policy. Prior to any new software installation on any desktop, the software and request form needed to be reviewed by the IT Department.

Once reviewed, the software was then tested for any bugs and viruses. If the software passed these tests, then the request for new software was approved by management and then installed on the particular desktop by a designated IT installer. No one other than the designated IT installer was allowed to install software onto any desktop. In doing so, it would be immediate grounds for termination. CURRENT STATE OF EXISTING SYSTEMS - Each office at CDL Entertainment had its own local area network and was not connected via an internal intranet with other CDL offices. This seemed to be creating a loss of customers due to ineffective turnaround response times, as discussed previously in the Project Scope on page 2 and later in the Current System Costs section on page 14.

In order for the project team to obtain a realistic view of the situation at hand, a Data Flow Diagram (DFD) (see Figure 1) of the existing systems was creating as a visual tool to refer to throughout the project analysis. The DFD provided an overview of each location's processes within which more detailed information was able to be analyzed and investigated pertaining to each LAN. It assisted the project team in showing the various flow of data between the processes transformed through the current systems and individual location procedures. The DFD shown in Figure 1 portrays the researched data flow processes within each office, taking into consideration miscellaneous contrasted differences between each office. At first glance, the data flow diagram does not appear to show any existing problems with the current approach of the way the company conducts business. However, keeping in mind each individual office has its own LAN and own policies, procedures, and processes, when reviewing the process a little further, the Shipping DFD really enlightens the current situation and to what degree customer delays are associated with the shipping process of each location.

As the first diagram explicates, a customer's order is processed and then progresses to accounting for invoicing, as well as shipping. During the order processing, several tasks take place simultaneously. Customer and pricing details are obtained while the inventory for that location is updated. If this process were only for a company with one location, it would be an ideal method of handling customer transactions. However, by performing customer transactions (i. e., accounting, inventory, shipping, etc.) at individual locations with different processes, Figure 1. Data flow diagram of each area location (Source: Introduction to Business Systems Analysis, Copyright 2000., Author: Curtis, Graham, et al.) problems have occurred due to lack of uniformity in the processes.

Invoicing often times has been wrong, late, or has contained outdated information. One such instance was after a situation with a former customer, Lundeberg Associates, Inc. received an invoice from CDL Enterprises. This invoice indicated an order placed by Lundeberg Associates for ten visual equipment products received on March 3, 2002. However, three of the ten products were returned to CDL via 2-day UPS delivery within two days of receipt. CDL received a confirmation receipt of these three products on March 6, 2002. However, Lundeberg Associates never received credit for the products returned Figure 2.

Data flow diagram of shipping process at each office as a result of the employee who received the products no longer worked for CDL and never forwarded the proper paper work to accounting, as well as the current personnel were unaware of the situation. Inventory has been a problem as a result of each location being unaware of what inventory was in stock at other locations. In the case of JPR Incorporated as mentioned previously, if the office in Los Angeles had been aware that the office in Arizona had the products needed to complete JPR's order, the Los Angeles office could have ordered the final products from the Arizona office, and then had the products delivered via overnight Federal Express directly to the customer. This would have resulted in meeting the deadline and not losing the customer. Shipping has often been delayed and / or proper documentation has not been included with a shipment. As shown in Figure 2 above, the shipping process can sometimes take as much as 25 days to complete an order.

After the shipping department at various locations has received a shipment approval notice as indicated in Figure 1, the shipment order acknowledgement can take up to 1-2 days to process back to accounting and then on to the customer, as well as consecutively accepting the order by the shipping department. After accepting the order, inventory must be requested and sent to shipping, sometimes taking as much as ten days to receive -- resulting in significant delays. Once the shipment documentation has been prepared the proper documentation needs to be prepared for the shipment, taking another day. Upon proper preparation of shipment documents, the proper product packaging needs to be prepared.

This usually assumes another one to two days in the shipping process. Following the packaging process, the proper carrier for shipment needs to be contacted, resulting in another one to two days of delay depending on the time of day the carrier was contacted. Finally, the product (s) gets picked up and, depending on the method of shipment the customer requested, the shipment could take as little as one day or as much as seven days to arrive at the customer's location. By creating data flow diagrams for the order process and shipping process from each location, the project team was able to identify the data flows and data stores of each location precisely and specifically and determine where the problems within the company were actually occurring.

EXISTING PROBLEMS - In addition to the problems displayed in the shipping data flow diagram, the project team identified the following additional problems. Service and product costs involving customer orders often times were outdated or priced wrong. For instance, on February 22, 2002, the corporate office in Los Angeles decided to increase product cost across the board by 1.33%. This equated to a product, such as a special visual effect, previously costing $3,000, now costing $3039.90. However, when UOP Enterprises in New Jersey ordered this product on February 24, 2002, they received an invoice for $3,000, when in fact the new product cost had gone into affect two days prior to the order.

Since the Los Angeles office and the New Jersey office did not have an immediate means of communication, as well as with other company locations, there was a delay with the notice of product price increase. This caused the company to have to offer the product at its original invoiced price of $3,000. Another existing problem that became apparent related to customer inquiries. It became more and more evident customer inquiries were becoming more and more difficult to deal with because records of the inquiries were not centrally located and were not stored in a uniform format that was easily accessible by all offices.

For instance, when ABC Company, located in New Jersey inquired about an order placed on April 2, 2002, coming from the Arizona location, the customer service representative followed the New Jersey office's procedure for customer inquiries and entered the inquiry into the database at the New Jersey location. Since the New Jersey location was not networked with the Arizona location, the responsibility to follow through on the customer inquiry was dependent upon another customer service representative in Arizona to review the other customer inquiry databases on a weekly basis. However, this actually took longer than a week as a result of tape backups having to be sent to all other company locations via overnight express. The backup tapes were delayed in the shipping department of each individual office due to customer orders took precedence over customer inquiries. This was the same exact scenario for backorders. Backorders also became a problem to address.

As with customer inquiries, backorders were kept on individual databases for each location while the backup tapes were shipped to each individual office. On an average 50 products per location were on back order per month. Of these total backorders at each location, more than half, or approximately 35, were delayed in shipping. To alleviate upset customers, each area office applied a 10% discount per backorder. As an example, when ABC Company's order was delayed in Arizona, a discount was applied to the total invoice of $7,000.

This equated to be a $700 discount. If there were 35 backorders totaling the same amount the extended discount would be a loss of $24,500 per office per month. CURRENT SYSTEM COSTS - As discussed previously, the current company infrastructure utilized by the various CDL offices consisted of local area networks in the seven area locations throughout the world, 3 US offices and 4 offices located internationally in Europe (2 offices), Japan, and South America. Although this has been functional for years, it has caused the company to overspend by approximately 30% per year when all costs were considered. Each office stored client project files on local computers, as well as backups of those files have been kept in an offsite locale, which was also local to a particular office. Any files or client information that needed to be used by other CDL locations have not had the capability of being sent electronically.

This was due to the fact files were on average 3-4 MB in size, and the existing connection speeds on the individual LANs did not make electronic transfer a solution without utilizing 20-30% of the LAN's bandwidth capability. As a result, each office has had to physically ship copies of clients' project files to another office when requested. A typical office has had to send approximately 20 packages per week, sometimes as many as 30 if a big deadline was approaching. This did not include the files and other inter-office information being shipped between offices, which accounted for another 1-3 packages per week. The material was usually time sensitive, and had to be shipped next day, which incurred additional costs of approximately $10-15 per package. Although this process accomplished the job, it has not been very cost effective.

On average, each office has spent approximately $2223 a month just on shipping files back and forth. Shipping these files back and forth also incurred several incidental costs such as files damaged and / or lost in transit, insurance costs, and the cost of reshipping the files. These costs were estimated to be around $100-150 per month per office. This was in addition to the time spent filing freight claims. The above-mentioned process also incurred intangible costs such as a 10% loss in new revenue and 20% of its current revenue; these costs cannot always be recouped.

Perhaps the most important intangible cost was the loss of a customer. Each CDL office generated about $1 million dollars in revenue a year. Each year, a CDL office has lost about 20% of its projected revenue as a result of delayed turnaround time and client deadlines that were not met. This has equated to a little less than a quarter of a million dollars ($200,000) in extra revenue per office per year that was lost due to the current system in use. It was also estimated that as a result of customer loss, the damage to CDL's reputation resulted in an estimated 5-10% loss in new client projects per year, which equated to about $50,000-$100,000 per office per year.

In addition to the intangible and tangible costs associated with the current processes used at CDL, there were also costs associated with the actual computer systems themselves. CDL allotted approximately $150,000 per office per year for individual software budgets. This included maintenance of the current office systems and any new software purchased for each office. Because CDL's systems were currently serving their purpose, approximately $105,000 (70%) of the software budget was allotted for maintenance of the current system. Only the remaining 30% was allotted for new software acquisitions. The budget for maintenance was likely to increase slowly as time went by and the system continued to grow older.

Approximately 95% of the maintenance budget was accounted for in the salaries of the individuals performing the maintenance on the system. Each office spent approximately $100,000 per year on IT salaries. The remaining percentage ($5,000) was allotted as a "cushion" for maintenance if any incidental hardware or software was incurred. The latter cost was likely to increase on average of 1% per year as the system aged. Over a period of four years, this $5,000 "cushion" would be cut in half due to this increase. CDL was spending approximately $1500 a month at each office on phone calls.

This included long distance charges incurred between inter-office calls, to vendors and customers. This cost was approximately 10% higher than it needed to be because of the extra phone calls required to customers as a result of the failures of the current system (i.e. unsatisfied customers, late shipments, etc. ). Approximately $150 per office per month was being spent on phone calls that could have been avoided. In addition to phone calls, CDL was incurring approximately $500 per month per office in faxing charges. This included the faxing done as a result of normal business transactions.

Upon further inspection it was noted that each office within the company was incurring approximately $100 per month in unnecessary long distance fax charges as a result of the current system. These unnecessary faxes included items such as design templates that needed to be faxed as a result of a deadline not being met, required signature pages needed at the last minute and other such documents. Had the communication system provided an electronic means of transmitting information as opposed to doing things manually, such charges could be eliminated, saving CDL approximately $6,000 per year throughout the company. Another large issue was the amount of copying done to prepare the faxes and mailing documents. Each office had a lease on 1-3 copy machines for their copying needs. Each office was producing approximately 40,000 copies per month, which was costing $900 per month towards their lease agreement.

This equated to approximately $300 per machine. The lease amount on the copy machines was based on the amount of copies produced. It was estimated that CDL was paying an estimated 10% more for the leases than what was needed. Due to all the faxing and mailing that was necessary with the current system in place, CDL was producing approximately 4,000 additional copies per office than was needed. Reducing the copying by 4,000 per month would have lowered the lease amount on the machines to $175 per machine, which in turn would have reduced the total cost per office to $525 per month. Current costs per year The amount represents the expense per office, and the extended costs include all of CDL's offices.

CDL is spending over three quarters of a million dollars a year on tangible costs -- which is 12% of its worth! Current and projected 5 year losses The percentages listed above are the estimated overages in dollar figures. As in Table 2, the amount column is the yearly amount spent per office, the extended cost is the combined costs of all offices, and the projection figures include all office revenues. As the figures show, CDL is currently forfeiting $1.5 million dollars a year in potential income, and it has projected the current system will result in approximately a $7.5 million in lost revenues if kept in place. PERFORMANCE MATRIX - The detailed analysis of the current system clearly indicates a need for improvement.

CDL is spending too much money on its operations. Not only are these costs dipping into company profits, but also they have had more far reaching affects. The company's reputation is also being impacted. Failure to deliver products on time has not only resulted in a loss of current customers (and income), but potential new customers as well. While CDL management realized there were issues with the current system, the analysis performed has clearly shown that there is a need to make improvements in many areas of the business.

Based on the data from the analysis, the project team has created a performance matrix that specifies the benefits they would like to see from any improvement effort. If management approves the next phase of the effort (analyzing solutions), the performance matrix will be used to establish the initial cost and improvement requirements imposed on any proposed solutions. While most of the performance matrix addresses reduction in costs, the matrix also looks at reduction in cycle time and improvements in customer satisfaction. In all cases, the data collected for the analysis of the current system is used as the basis for determining improvement goals.

The performance matrix consists of five tables. In all cases, except the shipping and customer satisfaction tables, the expenses and savings are projected over a five-year period. The first table addresses office expenditures. This table lists all the office expenditures incurred, the performance goals the company would like to see, the cost saving, and percentage on reduction. The second table covers losses of existing and potential customers, as well as cost incurred in discounts and rebates to dissatisfied customers. This table gives the total losses from current customers who have cancelled orders due to delivery problems.

This table also includes an estimate of the potential losses from new customers, and the savings the company would like to see on rebates and discounts. The estimated losses are based on feedback from surveying potential new customers. The third table deals with reduction in cycle time, and the fourth looks at improvements in customer satisfaction. The last table lists the cost containment goals for computer maintenance, plus the cost limits on any new computer hardware or software procured. While CDL realizes that any proposed solution may result in the need to purchase additional computer hardware and software, they have set limits on what these costs should be. Introduction to Business Systems Analysis, Upper Saddle River: Pearson.

2000.