Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
¶ … Manufacturing
The impact of IS/IT on manufacturing begins with an analysis of firm's value-chain analysis.
Well-structured information systems allow companies to integrate and coordinate information with the value-chain activities, identify significant changes and trends in the company performance and compare similar activities performed in different locations (Bashein, Markus, and Riley, 1994). These information systems also allow managers to make non-programmed manufacturing decisions, as Decision support systems and ERP systems can aid management in handling complex manufacturing decisions by providing quick and proper solutions of non-recurring manufacturing problems.
The use of IS networks are also necessary to support just-in-time (JIT) inventory management systems, which dramatically reduce inventory costs by closely coordinating suppliers' deliveries and manufacturers' production schedules. Similarly, external IT networks make it practical to improve business delivery processes. IS/IT offers an organization the ability to effectively leverage information resources for manufacturing activities (Tomasko, 1993).
Traditionally, product development processes have been characterized by sequential decision-making and little coordination between marketing, manufacturing, and research and design departments. From a socio-technical perspective of organizations, this is deemed to be highly ineffective since interdependent functional units need to engage in joint decision-making in order to reduce overall product development cycle times ((Bashein, Markus, and Riley, 1994). Electronic mail, video-conferencing, and computer-to-computer links such electronic data interchange (EDI) are important devices to support workgroups collaboration. Today, for example, it is feasible for team members to coordinate synchronously (across time zones) and geographically (across remote locations) more easily than ever before.
Computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) systems are also used to coordinate between designs and manufacturing groups. IT, by providing simulation and modeling capabilities,...
By integrating sales and marketing with engineering and manufacturing, organizations can offer increasingly high level of services to customers. Salespeople from different sites and in the field can now easily access customer, product, and inventory databases to offer reliable information about product attributes, price, delivery, and services.
By analyzing firm's value-chain activities, an organization can identify main business entities, and standardize data-entities across different departments and locations. By sharing consistent information by different departments along the firm's value-chain activities, a corporate database can provide opportunities for comparing business performance of value-chain activities in the process (Tomasko, 1993).
Since the efficiency and reliability of a business depends not only on a firm's capabilities but also the capabilities of its partners such as suppliers, vendors, and major customers. Traditionally firms carried out most of business activities through vertical integration, but in fast dynamic environments, these kinds of hierarchical structures are inflexible and slow to respond to customers quickly. IS networks between two or more firms can allow these firms to create is a better alternative for making quick decisions.
A number of firms are using IS/IT to offer a one-stop-shopping service to customers.
The second objective is to connect customer-database systems for targeted cross selling within and across business lines. By linking to diverse databases, IS networks can find relationships between these databases and leverage the opportunities for cross selling.
A third objective is to be able to leverage its partners' such as suppliers' and vendors' systems…
References
Bashein, B.J., Markus, M.L., and Riley, P. (1994). Preconditions for BPR success, and how to prevent failures. Information Systems Management, 10(1): 7-13.
Boar, B. (1994). Information technology and business alignment: A strategic assessment. In B. Voss and D. Willey (Eds.), Handbook of Business Strategy. New-York: Faulkner & Gray, pp. 173-188.
Davenport, T.H. (1993). Process innovation: Reengineering work through information technology. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press.
Tomasko, R.M. (1993). Rethinking the corporation: The architecture of change. New York: Amacom.
Between 1971 and 1979, Bridgestone built almost 1 million bikes for Schwinn, or roughly about 4.5 times the number of bikes Bridgestone-Japan built in during the Bridgestone years of 1984-1994. Bicycle manufacturers such as Schwinn did not begin manufacturing their own frames until the late seventies. Bridgestone had been producing its handbuilt Paramount line of racing and touring machines, with elegantly carved and hand brazed joints, since 1938, and
Aiquang (2007) conducted a review of Bosch Group, the global supplier of automotive, building and industrial technology as well as consumer goods. Before implanting TPM they spent several hours in solving machine/equipment problems, while the operators and line leaders did not know how to assist them. Gurinder Singh (2006) conducted a review of Total Productive Maintenance and found that faced with an economy in recession, increasing competition, an installed capacity
Initial concentrations may be minute, but because the body does not adequately eliminate or metabolize these compounds, they accumulate in the tissues. This occurs until the concentrations become significant enough to interfere with the bodies functions. This is problem is exacerbated by the challenges associated with the extraction of these metals from the environment, once they have entered. These metals are very difficult and expensive to remove from contaminated
The communication barriers must be eliminated. This objective can be achieved through proper HR training and through the use of it systems at all the levels in order to support a better coordination of all the actions. The quality control would be better supervised and enhanced in this manner. In order for the company to be able to respond to the currently developing needs and preferences of the customers, it needs
Prestowitz (2005) addresses the incongruity that this is presenting to the American laborer. Even as education costs continue their annual climb, the competition for jobs in service and technology industries is making a loser out of the American white-collar worker. The economic demands created by the social parameters of American educational and professional advancement dictate such occupations must command a wage spectrum concordant with the attendant costs above mentioned.
Companies such as General Motors are an ideal historical example of an organization which has literally created and sustained towns in order to power its manufacturing operations, such as the notorious center of production which once was Flynt, Michigan. With the closure of its major plants in the 1980s, as per the pattern whereby such nations moved operations to cheaper markets, Flynt and towns just like it have descended into