Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Last Week

Knowledge Management (KM)

We watched a lecture by Gordon Jones considering Knowledge Managamenet (KM). An important question considering KM is, how can KM make organizations better.

Important topics considering KM includes:
What is Knowledge?
Can Knowledge be Managed?
How does organizations know things?
Who knows what you need to know?

Knowledge starts with the people and what they consider as knowledge.

Knowledge is:
- Messy
- Self-organizing
- Seeks communication
- Communicated through language
- Obeys no one master
- Reacts to how you use it
- Doesn't behave within restrictive rules
- Resist single solutions (silver bullets)
- Wants to get out

As the knowledgde wants to get out, the managers must know how to manage that knowledge. Further, knowledge changes through time. An example is how people communicate. Today people communicate throught the web, social networks, virtual teams and so on.

Managers and strategic planners hope to know what the knowledge is. If the data and the information are turned into the "right" knowledge, the future of the organization lays in the hands ofhow the organization knows and understand things.

Important for managers: How do you know who knows? How is the knowledge transmitted? One must understand WHY the knowledge is important to see the purpose of it.
For an organization to "win" today, one must KNOW what product to sell, how much it will cost and when and where to sell it.

Jones talked about Explicit vs. Tacit Knowledge.
Explicit Knowledge is contained in tangible and storable artifacts while tacit Knowledge is personell, context and specific. It is hard to formulate and communicate. It is important knowledge.

What is consistent today is that everything changes.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Week 13

After the attendance, every group had their presentations. Our group, The Bugs’ presentation considered Second Life and how to create a virtual web site and CRM system for a company selling robots.

The rest of the class considered announcements about the second Case Study, APA style and the final exam.

Week 12

Chapter 10
Enterprise Resource Planning and Collaboration Systems

Enterprise resource Planning (ERP) includes all departments and functions throughout an organization into a single IT system. This makes it easier for all employees to make decisions by viewing enterprisewide information on all business operations. ERP systems provide companies with consistency, and a method for effectively planning and controlling of all the recourses required to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders in a manufacturing, distribution, or service organization. Enterprise is the key word in ERP.

Core ERP are the traditional components included in most ERP systems. They primarily focus is on internal operations. Extended ERP components also focus on external operations. The four most common extended ERP components are; business intelligence, customer relationships management (CRM), supplies chain management and E-business.

It takes 8 to 10 months on average for a company to see the advantages or risks due to the ERP. ERP systems are const effective for most companies. However it cost much to implement the system. Considering the future, ERP places new demands on support and delivery information technology, in addition to the way business processes have to be designed, implemented, monitors, and maintained. The Internet and the adoption of the Internet is one of the single most important forces that reshape ERP’s architecture and functionality.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Week 11

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

SCM includes all the stakeholders involved in the movement of raw materials and product
Information flow among each stage in the stage
SCM makes business effective in the way that a raw product goes from the distributor and upstream to the suppliers’ supplier via the manufacturer, or in the other way, from the manufacturer to the customer’s customer via a retailer.

Supply Chain Components needs to monitor:
Plan – Source – Manufacture – Deliver – Returns

IT in Supply Chain Management
Integrates the processes using networking, hardware and software

Group Assignments
Hot Chocolate: Strategic plan for flexible SCM
Alpha 222: Levi Strauss and SCM. Wal-Mart is the pioneer to SCM system and they have a very strict SCM. A cross-functional team of key managers transformed Levi Strauss system to meet the Wal-Mart requirements.
Lucky #7: Finding Shelf Space at Wal-Mart. Again, this group mentions how good Wal-Mart’s SCM is. It is the world’s largest retailer and they use IT as a tool to create highly-sophisticated SC. They also talked about the seven principles of SCM.
The Bugs: Reinvent a new product using SCM. This was a difficult task since almost everything is going online. However we came up with fresh organic fruit to the customers.

After the group presentations we saw a video that Sabrina found on YouTube about Supply Chain Management. This video aimed to show how effective SCM can be and make business more efficient. The video was posted by The Supply Chain Company.

The groups went together to find positive and negative outcomes about SCM

Positive effects of SCM
Decrease of Cost
Loss of Jobs
Decrease of Pollution and Good for the Environment
Negative effects of SCM
Too much information sharing. Ex: Wal-Mart have too much information about the supplier
Effective and Efficiency (focus on the right things)
Technology might be too expencive