Wilmaplex is an Australian company that works in the domain of manufacturing of hardware products. The company is set up in Victoria, Australia since past 20 years and has been producing & distributing since then. The company deals with the largest store chains in Victoria and also works with the leading wholesalers (Wilmaplex, 2018). The company has always adhered to the Australian Standards which has made it one of the most sought after companies in Australia. There were several issues in the organization, such as inability to streamline Accounts Receivable processes, chasing up of invoices of customer systems, and many more. The report covers the critical success factors, objectives, organization chart, current system analysis, and primary features of the new information system. The potential security risks and data breaches are also covered in the report.
The critical success factors of the company are as listed below.
The primary objectives of the company are as listed below.
There would be a lot of information that will be required to evaluate the objectives of the company. The compliance reports will be needed to ensure that the compliance level is maintained at all times. The customer feedback on the current and new system and services will be required to determine the level of engagement and satisfaction of the customers. Technological compatibility analysis report, technical updates report, and review reports will be required to understand the use and application of technology. There will be a lot of sales data and information needed to determine the revenues and profits earned by the company. Production reports will be needed to evaluate the ethical and legal compliance status.
The aim of Wilmaplex Pty Ltd is to provide the customers with better quality hardware products at reasonable costs and with adherence to the Australian standards and policies.
Organizational Chart
The organizational structure that is currently followed in the organization is Wilmaplex Pty Ltd. The organization chart has been shown above.
There are certain weaknesses that are associated with the organization:
Flowchart
Data flow diagram
In order to avoid the above issues and challenges, the company decided to implement and use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in the year 2015. However, the use of EDI appeared as over budget and the company decided to implement an alternative system at lower costs. The system has not been updated since then and there are issues in accounting and invoicing services that are coming up. This is implicating the customer trust and engagement levels for the organization. There are also certain issues with the hardware manufacturing processes that are also being seen currently as a result of limited capabilities of the current system. The inability to update the system has brought up increased probability of the data security risks and attacks.
It is necessary to implement a new information system for the organization owing to the current set of challenges associated with the organization. Some of the weaknesses and challenges with the current system include Accounts Receivable processes were not streamlined with the customer procedures, regular chasing up of the invoices in customer systems to validate if the complete payment was done or not, and Internal technological capabilities were also one of primary set of problems associated with the current system. Some other issues include need for resources to implement any of the new systems, and use of postal services to send the invoices to the customers which usually results in the delays and deteriorated customer trust. The proposed information system that will be implemented for the organization will have three main modules as Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP), Manufacturing Resource Planning 2 (MRPII), and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) (Zhao, Lai and Young, 2002).
ER diagram
Attributes of all entities are as follows:
EMPLOYEE
ADDRESS
CUSTOMER
PAYMENT
ORDER
Order Detail
PRODUCT
INVOICE
INVENTORY
User view #1 – List of all products available in a warehouse on a particular date – In this particular view, details of those products – product ID, product name, product type, product description are displayed which are available in at least one warehouse on a particular day, month or date. In complicated scenarios, details of warehouse can also be shown – warehouse number, warehouse name, warehouse address and warehouse manager.
User view #2 – List of all agents registered on a particular date – In this view, details of all agents – agent ID, agent first name, agent last name, agent business contact number and email ID are shown on a particular date, day or month.
User view #3 – List of suppliers – In this view, details of all agents – supplier ID, supplier first name, supplier last name, supplier business contact number and supplier email ID are shown on a particular date, day or month.
User view #4 – List of outdated products – In this particular view, details of those products – product ID, product name, product type, product description are displayed which are no longer available or company has stopped manufacturing them.
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) is a technology that provides an integrated solution for the execution and management of all the manufacturing activities. Efficiency and accuracy of the processes is improved with the aid of the technology by effective management of the basic set of processes, such as production scheduling and inventory management. The issues associated with the accounts and invoice management of the company can be addressed with the incorporation of the technology. MRPII is the advanced version of MRP and comes with advanced set of features, such as machine capacity scheduling, demand forecasting, quality assurance, general accounting, supply chain management, marketing automation, project management, and many more. Core financials and enterprise asset tracking are the two other benefits that come with MRPII that are absent in MRP (Towers, Knibbs and Panagiotopoulos, 2005).
Some of the features of the technology that will be included in the new system are listed below.
The use of the technology in the new information system will be relevant to the organization as it will allow the resolution of the current set of problems and issues. It will offer the following set of benefits to the organization.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) refers to the technology that enables the electronic exchange of the organization documents with the aid of computer systems. These can be shared with the business partners and other stakeholders with the company. EDI is a secure replacement of the postal mails and emails. Emails are also the electronic exchange of messages and information; however, there are still people involved in the process. EDI documents on the other hand straightaway go to the receiver’s computer without the involvement of the human. The main business documents that Wilmaplex shares are the business documents, such as purchase orders, and invoices. These also include customs documents, shipping status documents, ship notices, and payment documents. There is a standard format that is defined by EDI for the exchange of such documents and the standardization is maintained for all the documents. Two of the most popular standards that may be used are ANSI and EDIFACT (Jimenez-Martinez and Polo-Redondo, 2008). The technology will be relevant for the organization as it will offer several benefits and will overcome the current set of problems and issues. In order to avoid the above issues and challenges, the company decided to implement and use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in the year 2015. However, the use of EDI appeared as over budget and the company decided to implement an alternative system at lower costs. The system has not been updated since then and there are issues in accounting and invoicing services that are coming up. This is implicating the customer trust and engagement levels for the organization. There are also certain issues with the hardware manufacturing processes that are also being seen currently as a result of limited capabilities of the current system. Over the years, there are modifications that have been made to the EDI systems that will bring down the costs and offer enhanced functionalities to the organization.
The use and implementation of the new information system will offer the organization with several benefits. However, there will be certain security risks and drawbacks that will also be involved. There may be information security risks and data breaches that may come up.
The information system will be accessed and implemented over the network. These computing networks will be primary threat agent that may lead to the enhanced probability of the network-based attacks. There may be issues of network eavesdropping and man in the middle attacks that may appear. These are the attacks in which unauthorized entities may gain network access and sit over the network during the transmission of the information from the source to the destination. The attackers may gain information out of the network activities which may be misused later. Many of the flooding attacks may be carried out through the networking channels. Two of the primary forms of flooding attacks may be denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks. In these attacks, the garbage traffic will be flooded on the networking channels associated with the new information system (Jouini, Rabai and Aissa, 2014). It may result in the blocking of the system availability and accessibility. The breakdown of the services will occur and the quality will also be deteriorated. Data breaches, data leakage, and data manipulation are the issues that may appear with the occurrence of the above security issues. The access control practices may also be violated to breach the data sets. There may also be scenarios wherein the employees of Wilmaplex may be provided with the access to the information system on their mobile devices. These mobile devices may get lost or may be stolen by the attackers which will result in the leakage and loss of data. The issue may appear on the networking channels as well wherein the properties or details of the data sets and packets may be altered or the destination address may be modified. The packets may not reach their destination. The manipulation of the message and media sets may be carried out. Insider threats may also come up with the new information system that may lead to breaching of the data sets. The employees will be provided with the access rights and permissions that may be misused by the attackers. The employees may exchange the information sets with the competitors of Wilmaplex that may cause a poor impact on the integrity and confidentiality of the data sets. Malware attacks will also be common with the new information system. For instance, ransomware is one of the malware codes that may be launched on the new system. It will block the access for Wilmaplex employees on the new system and there will be message displayed by the attackers to pay a ransom to gain the access to the system. All the files will be encrypted and the system access will be blocked. Viruses and worms may also attack on the new information system to impact the functioning of the features integrated with the information system.
There are various security controls that are available that shall be used for avoiding the security attacks and data breaches. There are also accounting controls that are available that shall be used for ensuring that data security and accuracy is always maintained.
Conclusion & Recommendations
It is recommended that the latest and advanced technologies, such as MRP, MRPII, and EDI are included in the new information system that is developed. There are security controls that shall be used along with the accounting controls. These shall include the anti-malware tools, anti-denial tools, and other network security tools to control the security risks and attacks. Wilmaplex is an Australian company that works in the domain of manufacturing of hardware products. The information system will provide the organization with competitive edge in the market.
References
Ip, W., Kwong, C. and Fung, R. (2000). Design of maintenance system in MRPII. Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, 6(3), pp.177-191.
Jimenez-Martinez, J. and Polo-Redondo, Y. (2008). International diffusion of a new tool: the case of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in the retailing sector. Research Policy, 26(7-8), pp.811-827.
Jouini, M., Rabai, L. and Aissa, A. (2014). Classification of Security Threats in Information Systems. Procedia Computer Science, 32, pp.489-496.
Lee, S. (2010). The relationship among formal EDI controls, knowledge of EDI controls, and EDI performance. Information Technology and Management, 11(1), pp.43-59.
Ngai, E. and Gunasekaran, A. (2004). Implementation of EDI in Hong Kong: an empirical analysis. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 104(1), pp.88-100.
Pacificcommerce (2018). Wilmaplex. [online] Pacific Commerce. Available at: https://www.pacificcommerce.com.au/page/wilmaplex [Accessed 23 Sep. 2018].
Singh, K. (2017). Enterprise system in a mid-sized Indian manufacturing organisation – a case study. International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 14(3), p.257.
Tan, S., Idrus, R. and Yusof, U. (2011). Operational Framework for Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) System Case Studies in Malaysian Small and Medium Enterprises a Taxonomy Model for Structural Misfit of MRPII System. Advanced Materials Research, 383-390, pp.6792-6799.
Towers, N., Knibbs, A. and Panagiotopoulos, N. (2005). Implementing manufacturing resource planning in a Greek aerospace company. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 25(3), pp.277-289.
Wilmaplex (2018). Wilmaplex Pty Ltd. Website. [online] Wilmaplex. Available at: https://wilmaplex.com.au/ [Accessed 23 Sep. 2018].
Zhao, X., Lai, F. and Young, S. (2002). A study of Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRPII) implementation in China. International Journal of Production Research, 40(14), pp.3461-3478.
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