Mis Project
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CONFIDENTIAL
MIchigan Supply Inc.
Information Systems Initial Plan for Year 2005-20008
CONTEXT
MIchigan Supply Inc. (MIS Inc.) is a privately-held automotive parts supplier of a variety of products such as electronics, solenoids, wiring and fuel components. The company is currently located in Rochester Hills, Michigan.
INITIAL COMPUTER SYSTEMS
MIS is currently separated into 5 departments: Manufacturing and Production with engineers, machine workers and production managers; Finance and Accounting with accounts; Human Resources with human resources staff; Sales and Marketing with salespeople, sales managers, customer service representatives; and Upper Management with secretaries and executives.
Required systems and job Functions
Each department has its required systems and different job functions which as listed below:
Manufacturing and Production information systems
Machine control system to control the actions of machines and equipment
Production planning system to decide when and how many products should be produced
Facilities location system to decide where to locate new production facilities
Graphic system for engineers to design or improve products
Finance and Accounting information systems
Accounts receivable system to track money owed the firm
Budgeting system to prepare short-term budgets
Profit planning system to plan long-term profits
Human Resources information systems
Training and development system to track employee training, skills, and performance appraisals
Compensation analysis system to monitors the range and distribution of employee wages, salaries, and benefits
Human resources planning system to plan the long-term labor force needs of the organization
Sales and Marketing information systems
Order processing system to enter, process, and track orders
Pricing analysis system to determine prices for products and services
Sales trend forecasting system to prepare 5-year sales forecasts
Upper Management information systems
Executive support systems to address non-routine decisions requiring judgment, evaluation, and insight; and to filter, compress, track display critical data of greatest importance to executives.
Equipment and configuration
Currently MIS has 12 machine workers so we need at least 35 workstations. Initially there should be a black and white printer for each of 5 departments and color printers available for engineers, executives and salespeople. Required server services include email, file storage, printing, backup functionality and battery backup system. In addition to the 4 laptops executives currently have, 5 more should be purchased for salespeople for mobility.
Equipment to be purchased should be the latest models which are capable of providing the 3 years of services and growth.
Fig. 1 shows the company infrastructure configuration.
We expect to have 50k to spend on 35 workstations ordered from Dell, 10k on 8 printers from Hewlett-Packard, 200k on server equipment, which should cover the costs of battery backup network switches, servers, tape storage device, serve/workstation software licensing, and 10k on 5 Toshiba laptops for salespeople.
INTERNAL NETWORKING CONFIGURATION
Fig. 2 shows the preliminary network configuration sketch.
MIS will provide a star topology for the LAN connection. This enables a centralized network to have a limited distance of cable and a more manageable physical network. Also use local service provider AT&T to connect to outside network. Maximum speed with 512k is good enough for MIS to start with 47 employees at this time. Evaluate possibility to increase the port speed after 2.5 years of operations. About 13k is expected to be put on the internet service each year.
DATABASE MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE (DMS)
Distributed databases for each department would be good to store all the documents profiling information dispersed throughout through out that particular department. The information is stored at various points so employees in the same department can access the same information.
Though the data is stored in multiple physical locations, the distributed database is centrally managed. Fig. 3 shows the structure of distributed database of each department. Distributing the database compartmentalizes the information, greatly reducing the chance of losing
the entire database. 75k has been proposed to be spent on the DMS offered by Microsoft.
Major entities within the databases are listed below:
Manufacturing and Production:
Product information e.g. designs, descriptions, price, manufacture date and quantity
Order information e.g. order date, order quantity, delivery date
Material supplier information e.g. name, address, material price
Finance and Accounting:
Financial information e.g. how much MIS owe, how much other companies owe MIS, budget, profit/loss
Payroll information e.g. employees salary, paycheck printing date
Invoice information e.g. invoice number, date and address of invoice sent
Human Resources:
Corporate policies/guidelines
Employees personal information e.g. resumes, benefits, training
Job postings
Sales and Marketing:
Sales