Winter Gear Distributors Case (v6)
Description
Winter Gear Distributors, WGD for short, is one of Fast-Fit’s main suppliers. They are a distributor of winter sports equipment and apparel, including everything from the latest cross country skies to winter clothing that you could wear to the North Pole. WGD has over 400 customers, deals with about 45 different manufacturers and takes on average 100 orders a day. While their products are state of the art, their information systems are out of date. In this case we will explore the problems with the current information systems and upgrade their old legacy systems into an improved information system that will enhance growth and profitability which are their main business concerns
WGD has been in business for 30 years and like many similar businesses it has three departments namely sales, operations and accounting. The sales department deals with their customers, including Fast-Fit. They take orders over the phone and fill out a paper order form that is subsequently entered into the departments DB. Later when they have the information they confirm to the customer that the order is accepted, give a delivery date and confirm prices. The operations department commits to delivery dates for orders through Sales, fills and ships customer orders. Finally the accounting department gives credit approval or not for an order, issues invoices after orders have shipped and receives payments from customers for goods shipped.
While the sales and accounting departments are on two different floors of an office building downtown the operations department is located about three miles away near the Interstate. The information systems in place work only within each department. The three departments communicate with each mostly by inter office mail. None of the 3 systems currently communicate electronically with each other since they were bought by each department to serve their own needs. (Note that when you draw an arrow in a system diagram it indicates that information has been transmitted but does not specify how the transmission takes place).
Diagrams may be draw by hand making sure you place a short but descriptive label on each arrow. The rest of the assignment needs to be a printed document in Word or some other word processor. Structure your answers as much as you can and answer the question asked as precisely as you can. The Integrative Framework from the course introduction slides may be helpful to you.
Questions
What is WGD’s business and what are their main business needs/drivers?
WGD is a distributor, which delivery sports equipment and apparel.
Draw a system diagram showing the processes and information flows (and product flow) between WGD and Fast-Fit starting when Fast-Fit places an order until payment is made. This diagram will have two processes/systems (circles in the diagram) and five arrows/flows with the labels on the arrows. Put Fast Fit on the left and WGD on the right.
Then do a consistent diagram that has five processes, two for Fast Fit (HQ and WH) and three for WGD’s three depts. Also show a DB for each of WGDs depts. Then show all the flows between all the Depts. and the DBs. Put Fast Fit on the left and WGD on the right. Brief descriptive labels go on the arrows/flows and may be described in more detail, if necessary, in a list below the diagram.
What happens if a customer calls and asks for the status of their order? How does his impact the business?
Give three examples of the ways errors can occur in filling orders. How do these impact the business?
Estimate how long it takes from when a customer gives WGD an order until it is shipped (cycle time). Do this by listing and estimated elapsed time for the order to spend in each step and moving between steps. How does this impact the business?
If there were no computers in the company and orders and other information was stored in filing cabinets what would happen to customer service, error rates and cycle times and why?
List and briefly explain the changes to the information systems you would make to address these problems? Do not change how WGD does business with their customers or any of the departments. Then re-draw the diagram in Q3 to show how the processing of orders changes.