Mis Wintergear Case Study Essay

MIS 2301 Winter Gear Distribution Case Study wPlaces order Confirm order and delivery date, issues invoice  confirms invoice  fulfills order and ships goods  follow up delivery conditions met, and payment received wPlaces order Confirm order and delivery date, issues invoice  confirms invoice  fulfills order and ships goods  follow up delivery conditions met, and payment received Winter Gear Distribution Winter Gear Distribution FastFit FastFit 1. WGB WGB FastFit FastFit 2. A single personnel computer A single personnel computer Sales Sales scanner scanner Operations Operations Arrows| Flow of operation| 1| FastFit places order with sales personnel over the phone | 2| Sales manually completes paper order forms and sends confirmation to Fastfit for each order and their delivery dates| 3| FastFit confirms for orders to be filled| 4| Operations fills and ships orders to Fastfit| 5| Accounting issues invoice to FastFit| 6| FastFit fulfills payment as agreed| LAN with 4 personal computers, printer, and file server LAN with 4 personal computers, printer, and file server IBM ASA 400 system with 3 CRT-terminals IBM ASA 400 system with 3 CRT-terminals Accounting Accounting WAN to connect departments WAN to connect departments 3. If customers call and ask for the status of their orders, the answer would generally be simple because the order can be labeled as processing, fulfilled, shipped, or delivered. If the customer wanted more details, and depending on the tracking systems that the company uses, they may or may not be able to give them the general location of the order (UPS map tracking). Companies would general want to fulfill orders in a timely fashion, so pushing orders out of warehouses would be recorded and their status updated, therefore, it is not much of a business problem. 4. Errors in filling orders are likely because, for example, for ordering online, a customer can general edit shipment addresses, or items in their cart while the order has still not been shipped. If the company operated like WGD and had no communication between their departmental systems, confusion on the  what, where, and how much of a customer’s order can be messed up or not reflect the changes. Aside from the er rors of processing orders, delivery can have errors as well, such as late deliveries or deliveries to the wrong addresses. The business impact is that customers will be dissatisfied and frustrated due to the inefficiency of the supplier company. They will complain about the timeliness, or operation of a company which would harm the company’s reputation and possibly decrease revenues. Bad reviews by customers can lose a company’s past customers or ward away new ones. 5. Steps | Time elapsed | Customer places order with WGD| ~30-60 mins (over the phone, not very time consuming)| WGD processes order | ~1 day (must check inventory, input order into system)| WGD sends confirmation of order and delivery dates| ~within 1 day (email, digitally)| WGD fulfills and ships order| ~2 days (packages order, checks it over, updates order system input, ships out)| Customer receives shipment| ~3-4 days (delivery is most time consuming but since standard delivery is 5-8 days, fulfillment and delivery add up to about 5 if in U.S)| WGD issues invoice | Occurs during delivery| Customer fulfills payment| Varies, can be immediately or with a payment plan| WGD can likely ship an order within about 2-3 days but delivery time will be between 5-8 days. This is not a business problem because most companies operate similarly with standard delivery times, however, WGD can improve their efficiency, reduce errors, and increase customer satisfaction if they updated their systems to be interconnected and more modern technology. 6. A scanner in the Sales Department would reduce the time needed to manually input process forms. A WAN network would also be useful because it would connect the Sales, Operations, and Accounting Departments despite being in different buildings; this decreases error probability and increases efficiency in processing, fulfillment, and shipment. ( See red figures in diagram in Q2 for changes in technology to WGD).