Monday, 28 May 2012
Monday, 14 May 2012
Customer Relationship management & Business Intelligence - Week Eleven Questions
Data mining is the process of analysing data to extract
information not offered by the raw data alone. Data mining can begin at a
summary information level and progress through increasing levels of detail or
the reverse. Data mining is the primary tool used to uncover business
intelligence in vast amounts of data.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Operations Management and Supply Chain - Week Nine Questions
1.
Define the term
operations management
1) Plan – Strategic portion of supply chain management. A company must have a plan for managing all the resources that go towards meeting customer demand for products or services. A significant part of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, effective, costs less, and delivers high quality and value to customers.
Operations management (OM) is the management of systems or
processes that convert or transform resources (including human resources) into
goods and services.
2.
Explain operations
management’s role in business
Operations management is responsible for managing the core
processes used to manufacture goods and produce services.
3.
Describe the correlation
between operations management and information technology
Information technology enables businesses
to differentiate themselves from competitors to gain competitive advantage and
works to maximise the efficiency of IT operations so that the business can
focus on their resources on providing value for the business. In conjunction to
this operations management ensures that these efficiencies of IT operations are
conducted as a result of being the core processes used to manufacture goods and
produce the services.
4.
Explain supply chain management
and its role in a business
Supply chain management (SCM) involves the management of
information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total
supply chain effectiveness and profitability.
5.
List and describe the
five components of a typical supply chain1) Plan – Strategic portion of supply chain management. A company must have a plan for managing all the resources that go towards meeting customer demand for products or services. A significant part of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, effective, costs less, and delivers high quality and value to customers.
2) Source – Companies must carefully
choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for
making products. Companies must endeavour to develop a set of pricing,
delivery, and payment processes with suppliers and create metrics for
monitoring and improving the relationships.
3) Make – Companies must manufacture their
products or services. This can include scheduling the activities necessary for
production, testing, packaging, and preparing for delivery. This is the most
metric-intensive portion of the supply chain, measuring quality levels,
production output and worker productivity.
4) Deliver – Commonly referred to as
logistics. It is the set of processes that plans for and controls the efficient
and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to
customers. During this, companies must
ensure they are able to receive orders from customers, fulfil the order via a
network of warehouses, pick transportation companies to deliver the products,
and implement a billing and invoicing system to facilitate payments.
5) Return – This is typically the most
problematic step in the supply chain, companies must ensure they create a
network for receiving defective and excess products and support customers who
have issues with delivered products.
Networks & Wireless - Week Nine Questions
1.
Explain
the business benefits of using wireless technology.
2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP
3. Compare LANs and WANs
4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective.
5. What is one new emerging technology that could change a specific industry
Wireless
technology refers to any type of electoral or electronic operations that is
accomplished without the use of a ‘hard wired’ connection and is a means of
linking computers using infrared or radio signals.. The benefit of utilising
wireless technology is cost effective, companies/residents no longer have to
rip up buildings or streets or lay down expensive cables. Wireless technology
has obvious advantages for people on the move who would like access to the
internet in airports, restaurants and hotels.
2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP
Voice over IP (VoIP) uses TCP/IP technology to transmit voice calls over
Internet technology. The telecommunications industry has experienced excellent
benefits from combining VoIP with emerging standards that allow for easier
development, interoperability among systems and application integration.
3. Compare LANs and WANs
A local area network (LAN) is designed to connect a group of computers
in close proximity to each other such as in an office building, a school or a
home. A LAN is useful for sharing resources like files, printers, games, or
other application. It often connects to other LANs and to the internet or wide
area networks. In contrast to this local area network, a wide area network
(WAN) spans a large geographical area, such as a state, province or country.
WANs connect multiple smaller networks, such as local area networks.
4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies use active or passive
tags in the form of chips or smart label that can store unique identifiers and
relay this information to electronic readers. RFDI tags can cut costs by
requiring fewer workers fir scanning items; they also can provide more current
and more accurate information to the entire supply chain.
5. What is one new emerging technology that could change a specific industry
An emerging technology that could potentially change the way in which Wi-Fi
access operates is WiMAX, this can solve all of the issues involved with Wi-Fi
such as:
-
Small
hotspots, and as a result coverage is sparse.
This evolving technology can cover an area of as much as 48,000 square
kilometres, depending on the number of users.
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Databases and Data Warehouses - Week seven Questions
1. List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five
characteristics of high quality information.
Accuracy – Are all the values correct? For example, is the name spelled correctly? Is
the dollar amount recorded properly?
Completeness – Are any of these values missing? For example, is the address complete
including street, city, state and postcode?
Consistency – Is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed
information? For example, do all total fields equal the true total of the individual
fields?
Uniqueness – Is each
transaction, entity and event represented only once in the information? For Example,
are there any duplicate customers?
Timeliness? – Is the
information current with respect to the business requirements? For example, is
information updated weekly, daily, or hourly?
2. Define the relationship between a database and a database management
system.
A database maintains information about various types of objects (inventory), events (transactions), people
(employees) and places (warehouses).Typically, a given database has a structural description of the type of
facts held in that database: this description is known as a schema. In contrast to a database management
system (DBMS) which is a computer program used to manage and query a database. The properties and
design of database systems are included in the study of information science.
A database maintains information about various types of objects (inventory), events (transactions), people
(employees) and places (warehouses).Typically, a given database has a structural description of the type of
facts held in that database: this description is known as a schema. In contrast to a database management
system (DBMS) which is a computer program used to manage and query a database. The properties and
design of database systems are included in the study of information science.
3. Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.
A good database can handle changes quickly and easily, just as any good business needs to be able to
handle changes quickly and easily.
A good database can handle changes quickly and easily, just as any good business needs to be able to
handle changes quickly and easily.
The advantages and organisation can gain by using a database are as follows:
- Increased flexibility;
- Increased scalability and performance;
- Reduced information redundancy;
- Increased information integrity (quality);
- Increased information security;
4. Describe the benefits of a data-driven website.
- Development: Allows the website owner to make changes any time – all without
having to rely on a developer or
knowing HTML programming. A well-structured, data-driven website enables updating with little or no training.
knowing HTML programming. A well-structured, data-driven website enables updating with little or no training.
- Content management: A static website requires a programmer to make
updates. This adds an unnecessary
layer between the business and its web content, which can lead to misunderstandings and slow turnarounds for
desired changes.
layer between the business and its web content, which can lead to misunderstandings and slow turnarounds for
desired changes.
- Future expandability: Having a data-driven website enables the site to
grow faster than would be possible with a
static site. Changing the layout, displays and functionality of the site (adding more features and sections) is
easier with a data-driven solution.
static site. Changing the layout, displays and functionality of the site (adding more features and sections) is
easier with a data-driven solution.
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