IT continuity planning for transnational manufacturing operations

Transnational IT Operations

Given the rapid rise in globalization, both manufacturing and services companies are increasingly relying on transnational IT operations. The intent of this paper is cover the essential elements of transnational IT operations, with the need for an IT continuity plan being critical for the stability of any organizations information, collaboration, and planning assets..

Transnational IT Operations begins with a solid IT Continuity Plan

Ensuring IT continuity during any company's transnational operations needs to begin with securing the company's core databases including pricing, manufacturing planning, scheduling, finance, accounting, procurement and purchasing before implementing any integration with systems located at remote geographic regions. Take for example a company choosing to move its manufacturing from the U.S. To China for example, and the need for having their ERP system consistently functioning during the move. This is where a solid transnational IT Continuity Plan is essential.

What is most critical within the context of the IT Continuity Plan is that the core business processes are not interrupted. These include the daily collaboration of managers with the manufacturing, purchasing, engineering, and logistics staffs, and the critical tasks of integrating enterprise resource planning with accounting, pricing, and finance. The software platforms and applications relied on to support these processes include collaboration tools including e-mail, the website, intranet portals and content management systems, manufacturing-related processes including inbound and outbound logistics, time and materials scheduling and accounting, job cost accounting, supplier management and procurement. To ensure these processes are not interrupted the systems and databases that contain these records need to be first replicated and then moved to an interim hosting center in the new location. Many companies rely on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure the minimum levels of performance are met. Sun Microsystems (2002) has defined a series of best practices for SLAs, and increasingly these agreements are considered as essential for the managing of transnational IT operations as hosted and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based approaches to managing systems is being used. SLAs are considered the definitive statement of service levels as they relate to service levels in many transnational IT deployments and operations.

Transnational IT Continuity Milestones for Year Three

Integration of buyer and supplier relationship management systems with the ERP systems to gain greater cost efficiencies over having disconnected systems. According to AMR Research (2002) when there are five or more systems integrated together there is a significantly higher level of Return on Investment generated.

Hosted CRM, ERP and supply chain systems with real-time integration links to buyers and suppliers piloting phases begin. This is to get away from the high software licensing and maintenance fees the company is paying today.

Integration with supplier hubs for more efficient procurement workflows globally.

Transnational IT Continuity Milestones for Year Five

Fully functioning SaaS-based platform hosted at the hosting centers and at the manufacturing site which is 100% fault tolerant and accessible entirely through a secured Internet connection.

Support for a Service-Oriented Architecture that integrates with all suppliers and key customers. EDI has been discontinued by this point and Internet-based transactions are commonplace in real-time.

Analytics and Business Intelligence lead to real-time dashboards of the key performance indicators of performance for the entire company.

Summary

The uneasy alliance of divergent cultures has become more visible and acute than ever due to the widespread globalization occurring today. These divergences in cultures are not directly attributable to global corporations' pursuit of low cost manufacturing, raw materials, more efficient supply chains, or any other strategy to increase the value of the products they deliver. It's much more fundamental than that, and resides more in the clash of cultures at a personal level, multiplied many times over, until the differences between two nations' or regions cultures becomes obvious to anyone. Corporations enable people from one divergent culture to access another, and if the culture they are visiting is widely different from their