Name Mike (Tao) Chen NetID Tche845 Group Number: 171 Website Link: http://infosys110groupxxx.blogspot.co.nz/ Tutorial Details Tutor: Day: Time: Yvonne Hong Wednesdays 10am Time Spent on Assignment: Word Count:
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2 GRAPHENE WATER FILTERS FOR NEW ZEALAND DAIRY FARMERS INTRODUCTION Water is an essential substance for life, not only is it vital to sustain all living things, its also crucial to human socio-economic development. Looking at how far the world in the 21 st
century has come would make many optimistic about the future, but the truth is there are some serious environmental issues that could not only inhibit economic development but negate it. One of such environmental issues is fresh water, we use it for drinking, cleaning, cooking and manufacturing (a major consumer of fresh water). In our New Zealand context, the issue of fresh water shortage is an interesting one, while most households around the country enjoy a ready supply of fresh water, our waterways are heavily polluted by the Dairy industry. Dairy farming make up the back bone of our economy, and while it generates much wealth for us, the practice of over-irrigation and dairy stock effluent puts a unsustainable strain on our waters. The amount of nitrogen produced by a small farm of about 200 cows is about the same as the sewage from a community of around 5000-10000 humans (Milking the land, n.d.). As a result of this problem, our group have come up with a unique business idea that incorporates both cutting edge material based desalination technology with information systems to provide the solution to this problem. Our business solution centers around a newly developed Graphene lamina based water filter that can filter both polluted water and sea water into pure water just by pumping it through its graphene lamina (Chandler, 2012). In this way, the dairy farmer can utitlise the water from dirty waterways to irrigate their land, while the resulting effluent can be filtered again and reapplied back into the fresh water supply. Obviously such a solution would be expensive to implement and maintain, and for that reason, we have incorporated an information system that monitors both the soil moisture content and the weather to reduced the cost of using the filter by
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3 predetermining when the filter/pump would be needed. In addition, the information system employed would also help with identifying problems in the filter and coordinating regular maintenance. 3. BUSINESS SECTION 3.1 Vision To provide sustainable water solutions to the most unsustainable enviroments for the holistic development of Mankind 3.2 Industry Analysis: Industry: Water Purification Industry Force: High/Low: Justification: Buyer power: Low Considering that there is currently no companies with the same product on the market, buyer power would have to be low. Also since demand in the agricultural industry for sustainable water solutions is outstripping supply, buy power here should not be seen to increase in the near future. (TechSci Research, 2014.) Supplier power: Low Because Graphene is an up and coming material, the industry is set to become very large with many competitors to supply graphene materials to potential customers. (Blau, 2013 ) Threat of new entrants: Low The industry has historically been characterised by high entry barrier due to cost. This industry
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Overall attractiveness of the industry: Although rivalry among existing competitors is high, all other forces are relatively low. It is difficult to find a substitute for purifying water in dairy farming. The cost of setting up a new company in this industry requires enormous scale and capital therefore low threat of new entrants. The suppliers of Graphene are tapping into an industry touted to be on par with the industrial revolution, ensuring competition for decades to come, while buyer power is low due to our the uniqueness of our business solution and product. All these factors contribute to making this industry attractive and favourable in both monetary and social ways. 3.3 Customers and Thei r Needs requires large scale and therefore lots of resources up front. (Guy & Fitzsimmons, 2009) Threat of substitutes: Low Due to the importance of fresh water in irrigation, an alternative to water purification is unrealistic and so would be low here. Rivalry among existing competitors: High Traditionally, this industry has experienced high competition especially in matrue market like Europe and North America. Although the scope of our business will be in NZ, this does not exclude the possibility of those existing companies from entering into the NZ water purification industry, and so competition might be high, also considering our business desire to go expand as well. (Valk, 2014).
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5 Our main target customers are New Zealands Dairy Farmers. Fresh water for irrigation is absolutely vital for the dairy industry. New Zealand leads the world in dairy products, and to maintain its competitive advantage it must align itself in a way that secures an abundant and sustainable supply of fresh water to irrigate the land in order for its dairy cows to produce milk. According to studys done, the average amount of water used to feed cows and washing them down is around 95 140 litres per day. Horizons Regional Council (2007). Considering there are more than 4.6million cows that are being milked every year since 2012 (GoDairy, 2012). In addition, with the governments aim of increasing all agricultural exports by 2025, the need for sustainable fresh water should only increase (Stowell, 2013). 3.4 The Product and Service Our product will satisfy our customers by providing fresh water through our graphene water filter/pump system. This ensures that the soil the cows grazes on are amply supplied with water even if there is no nearby fresh water supply. This system will also reduce the nitrogen (pollutant) footprint produced by the cows by filtering stock effluent outflow before they flow back into the waterways. In order to reduce costs, an information system would monitor the level of soil moisture content along with weather patterns to automatically determine when the graphene water filter/pump should be turned on or off. The dairy farmer has the option to override should he/she decides to. Since a system like this would need regular maintenance, our business would also provide regular maintenance as well as call outs for repair this would inturn be automated by our information system since we would be employing a diagnostic tool that detects clogged filters and faulty parts, and relays this message to our maintenance centres. Considering the cost of setting up a system like this, we would like our customers to pay for the setup costs as well as paying a monthly fee for the right to use such a system, much like how telecom charges its customers for its telephone lines and fibre services, where the customer do not necessarily own the utility themselves.
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6 3.5 Suppliers and Partners One vital supplier would be makers of our Graphene lamina, since production of such a material is highly technical and specialised, it would make more economic sense for us to look for expert suppliers already in the industry. Another supplier would be pump manufacturers would specialise in making powerful and efficient water pumps. The pump manufacturer would benefit from our need for efficient pumps while we benefit from their products and expertise in this field. On the partners side, mobile internet service providers like vodafone or telecom would be essential in our business. Majority of dairy farms are rural and therefore would require mobile internet service. So in order for our business solution to work, the dairy farmer would need a solid mobile internet connection for our Information System to work coherently with the graphene water filter/pump. This will no doubt benefit us as well as the mobile ISP provider we partner with. Another potential partner is the government, we would be partners in this venture since they can legislate that all heavy water consuming businesses such as dairy farms be required to purchase similar services like the ones we provide. This benefits the government since they would be legislating to protect the environmental integrity of the country and thus its future economic resources, while we benefit from almost guaranteed customers, a dream team if you like. 3.6 Strategy: Differentiation Although our target customers are Dairy farmers, we do want to offer all Dairy farmers our products. This is will be seen in a range of highly automated and efficient Graphene water filter/pump systems with varying capacities i.e. litres of fresh water delivered per unit time during irrigation for Dairy farms of varying sizes. Due to the nature of our product, the cost of setting it up would be quite high, and the price for ongoing mataintenance would also have to be profitable, and so our competitive advantage would have to be a revolutionary water filter that would cut cost for them in the
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7 future this should not be a problem, since growing demand for more dairy products and ongoing droughts in regions would ensure demand.
3.7 Value Chain Activity: Service after Sales Service after sales would be vital for us, since our filters would most definitely need routine replacement as it gets clogged up, and when technical issues occur maintenance must be able to resolove the problem quickly to ensure fresh water gets to our customers for irrigation on time. 3.8 Business Processes 3.8.1. BUSINESS PROCESS 1 Filter/Equipment Maintenance Process Step 1: Diagnostic device thats built into the filter detects a filter problem and sends the message to the maintenance department. Step 2: Maintenance department uses the maintenance management system to send out technicians who confirms the problem on-site. Step 3: The technician fixes the problem or replaces the component at fault. Decision step: The technician then asks; is there an additional problems related with the equipment other than the filter? i.e. routine check on the piping. If yes, proceed to step 4 and step 5. If no, process is completed. Step 4: Technician identifies the additional problem with the routine check.
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8 Step 5: Technician fixes the additional problem thus ensuring an efficiently running water filter. Process Ends 3.8.2. CHEESEBURGER HARD CHEESE PROCESS Software Maintenance Process Step 1: The IT department identifies bugs and potential improves, with the help of software maintenance system. Decision: The IT department then asks the question; are the bugs or improvements big enough to elicit change? If No, process loops back to step 1 until change is needed. If Yes, move onto Step 2 and 3. Step 3: Fix the bug and make the improvements. Step 4: Implement the improved software though online updates. This is done as the software maintenance system pushes the update online and notifies customers computers. Process Ends
3.9 Functionalities 3.9.1. BUSINESS PROCESS 1 FILTER/EQUIPMENT MAI NTENANCE PROCESS Identify clogged filters and problems with filter components. Co-ordinate technician callouts based on expertise, equipments on hand, and geography for efficient filter repair. 3.9.2. BUSINESS PROCESS 2 SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE PROCESS
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9 Identify software bugs and potential improvements. Implementing the software maintenance through online updates.
3.10 Systems
3.10. 1. SPECIFI C I NFORMATION SYSTEMS 1: Problem identification system The Problem identification system uses a diagnostic device built into the graphene water filter/pump which detects clogging and when components need replacing or repair. In addition, this diagnostic tool would relay this message back to the maintenance centres. This supports the vision of our organisation as it allows us to quickly resolve issues that may reduce the efficiency of our water filters ability to deliver fresh water to our customers. 3.10. 2. SPECIFI C I NFORMATION SYSTEMS 2: Maintenance management system This system takes into account of data regarding our technicians expertise, the equipment they have as well as their location. The system integrates all these information together and automatically determines the best technician that should be sent for each routine repair or callout job. This great increases the efficieny and speed at which problems are dealt with thus supporting our vision of providing sustainable water solutions to the most unsustainable places, which inevitably supports development.
3.10. 3. SPECIFI C I NFORMATION SYSTEMS 3: Software maintenance system This system not only helps identify bugs by taking information from customer service about customer complaints of bugs and pushes that information to the IT department, but it also implements the software update solution by pushing the updated software online, and automatically notifying our customers computers of new updates to be installed online. This ensures that our total product works cohesively as whole to provide our customers with and effective water solution, for their business development.
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10 3.11. Summary Table: Value Chain to Systems
Value Chain Activity Processes Functionalities Specific Information System(s) Broad Information System(s)
Service After Sales 1. Filter/Equipment Maintenance
1. Identify clogged filters and problems with filter components.
2. Co-ordinate technician callouts based on expertise, equipments on hand, and geography for efficient filter repair. Problem identification system
Maintenance management system DSS CRM 2. Software Maintenance 1. Identify software bugs and potential improvements
2. Implementing the software maintenance through online updates Software maintenance system DSS CRM
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11 CONCLUSION Given the need for water in all areas of the economy and life, I believe our innovative business solutions delivers much value to our customers that not only looks after their need for water to develop wealth in the present, but also sustaining the environment so that the potential for wealth may be available for generations to come. I believe our business solution has been well thought out especially in anticipating high costs, and therefore by employing a Information System that automates the capacity at which our filters are running at any given time, as well as a dynamic maintenance system would enable our product to achieve both high value to our customers as well as our vision To provide sustainable water solutions to the most unsustainable enviroments for the holistic development of Mankind
REFERENCES
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12 8. GoDairy. The big picture, facts and figures. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2014, from http://www.godairy.co.nz/the-big-picture/facts-and-figures 9. Guy, S., & Fitzsimmons, J. (2009). Filtration Industry: An M&A Retrospective. Filtration Industry Analyst, 2009(6), 4-6. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database
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