Enterprise System

An Enterprise Information System is generally any kind of computing system that

is of "enterprise class". This means typically offering high quality of service, dealing
with large volumes of data and capable of supporting some large organization ("an
enterprise").

Enterprise Information Systems provide a technology platform that enables

organizations to integrate and coordinate their business processes. They provide a
single system that is central to the organization and ensure that information can be
shared across all functional levels and management hierarchies. Enterprise systems
are invaluable in eliminating the problem of information fragmentation caused by
multiple information systems in an organization, by creating a standard data
structure.

A typical Enterprise Information System would be housed in one or more Data

centers , run Enterprise software, and could include applications that typically cross
organizational borders such as Content management systems.

Enterprise Systems include Applications and associated Information and have as a

fundamental premise a structure that permits the integration of data held in any
enterprise system with that held in other enterprise systems through the use of
appropriate common identifiers (e.g. ANU ID, affiliate ID), and the common use of
the University’s Organisational Structure (including the Academic Organisational
Unit structure).

Enterprise Applications typically have the following characteristics:

1. form part of the University's integrated business environment, are mission

critical in supporting core processes and key academic and administrative
functions;
2. are considered broad impact systems;
3. are approved as 'sole authoritative sources';
4. present business risks that must be managed, and a focus for audit concern;
5. require significant resources for implementation, maintenance and ongoing
support; and
6. are deemed to be Enterprise Applications under University policies.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management):

CRM is the acronym of Customer Relationship Management. CRM is a business

system that consists of enterprise goals, business strategies, business processes and
enterprise information systems. CRM software systems automate many customer-
related business tasks.

CRM vs. ERP and SCM

ERP (Enterprise Relationship Management) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) are
two other categories of enterprise software that are widely implemented in
corporations and non-profit organizations. While CRM attempts to enhance the
relationship with customers, the primary goal of ERP is to improve and streamline
internal business processes, and SCM aims to facilitate the collaboration between the
organization, its suppliers, the manufacturers, the distributors and the partners.

CRM Definition - A Systems Perspective

Goals of CRM Systems - Goals of CRM is to learn more about customers' needs and
behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them, and to facilitate
acquiring, enhancing and retaining of customers. Components of CRM System

• CRM Software - The core of an CRM system is module-based CRM software

application. Each software module automates business activities pertinent to
one functional area of customer relationship management. Common modules
in CRM software system includes customer contact management, direct
marketing, sales automation, call center applications and helpdesk module.
• Business Processes - Business processes within an organization falls into
three levels - strategic planning, management control and operational control.
While ERP has been promoted as solutions for supporting or streamlining
business processes at all levels, CRM systems are clearly designed to enhance
management control and operational control in the chain of customer
relationship management.
• Users - The primary users of CRM systems are workers that perform
management control and operational control. In an extended enterprise
environment, the CRM users may include customers and business partners.
 • Hardware and Operating Systems - UNIX is the most common operating
system for running CRM software. Windows NT and Linux are other popular
operating systems to run CRM software. Most larger CRM systems are UNIX
based. UNIX is a computer operating system designed to be used by many
people at the same time and has TCP/IP built-in. There are many reasons to
host your CRM software on UNIX.

Boundary of CRM System

The boundary of an CRM system is the boundary of extended enterprise that

implements the CRM system. The boundary of supply chain systems and ecommerce
systems extends to the organization's suppliers, partners and customers.

SCM (Supply Chain Management):

Supply Chain Management Overview - Participants and Processes Supply

chain management is the combination of the enterprise strategies, business process
and information technologies that integrates ...
Supply Chain Management Definition - A Systems Perspective Supply Chain
Management is a business system of enterprise strategies, business processes and
information technologies for improving the planning, execution and collaboration of
material, information, financial and workforce flows in the supply chain.
Supply Chain Planning Supply chain planning includes demand forecasting,
inventory simulation, manufacturing planning and transportation scheduling.
Supply Chain Execution Supply chain execution is the process of putting supply
chain planning into action.
Supply Chain Collaboration Successful implementation of a supply chain
management system improves the efficiency of collaboration between suppliers,
manufacturers and distributors - the collaboration of material flows, information
flows and financial flows.
Supply Chain Management Software - Planning, Collaboration, Automation
and Optimization Supply chain management software system facilitates supply
chain planning, collaboration, automation and optimization.
Supply Chain Software vs. B2B Exchanges B2B or Business to Business refers to
electronic trade or partnering between organizations.

Supply Chain Implementation and Integration

Supply Chain Project Management The scope of a supply chain project describes
the major business processes the project will transform, the participants of the
supply

Inventory Management & Warehouse Management

Inventory Management Overview - Demand Forecasting, Inventory

Monitoring and Inventory Reporting Inventory Management is part of Supply
Chain Management
Order Fulfillment Options and Choosing Fulfillment Company Fulfillment
services involve receiving, inventorying, warehousing, delivery, record-keeping and
customer inquiries

RFID

RFID: A Smart Tag Primer - Supply Chain Management Good things come in
small packages. This familiar cliché usually refers to precious stones, but today it's
taken on new meaning, in that small things are now protecting items we deem
valuable
RFID: A Closer View Within the last few years RFID (Radio Frequency
Identification) has steadily migrated from the inner circles of science and technology
into the public consciousness.

KMS (Knowledge Management System):

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management Overview Knowledge Management is the combination of

enterprise strategies, business processes and information technology for capturing,
organizing, storing and disseminating knowledge and experiences of individual
workers and groups.
Knowledge Management Definition - A Systems Perspective Knowledge
management will not be a industry and will not be a academic discipline without the
emergence of modern information technology.
Knowledge Management Solution - Sharing Knowledge with Employees,
Customers and Partners Knowledge management has been the solutions for many
business problems - organizational learning, customer management and coordination
with business partners.
Knowledge Management Technologies and Tools The core of an Knowledge
Management system is Knowledge Management software or information technology.

Examples:

• Business process automation, or BPA, is the process a business uses to

contain costs. It consists of integrating applications, restructuring labor
resources, and using software applications throughout the organization.

• A job scheduler is a software application that is in charge of unattended

background executions, commonly known for historical reasons as batch
processing. Synonyms are batch system, Distributed Resource
Management System (DRMS), and Distributed Resource Manager
(DRM). Today's job schedulers typically provide a graphical user interface and
a single point of control for definition and monitoring of background
executions in a distributed network of computers. Increasingly job schedulers
are required to orchestrate the integration of real-time business activities with
traditional background IT processing, across different operating system
platforms and business application environments.

Benefits of Introducing an Enterprise System:

• Improve information flow

• Reduce inventory and reduce out-of-inventory events
• Improve process efficiencies
• Overall cost reduction by automating functions
• Reduce head count
• Increase information visibility
• Supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model KPIs
• Reduce month-end closure time
• Integration of processes to achieve seamless resource management
• Increase productivity and throughput
• Incorporate vendor-managed inventory (VMI)
• Become more agile and efficient
• Drive efficiencies in the supply chain
• Automate processes
• Improve response time
• Transparency in costing information
• Reduce work-in-progress
• Improve bills-of-material management

Business intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting,

digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or
departments, or by associated costs and incomes.[1]

BI technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of business

operations. Common functions of business intelligence technologies are reporting,
online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, business performance
management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.

Business intelligence aims to support better business decision-making. Thus a BI

system can be called a decision support system (DSS).[2] Though the term business
intelligence is sometimes used as a synonym for competitive intelligence, because
they both support decision making, BI uses technologies, processes, and applications
to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes while competitive
intelligence gathers, analyzes and disseminates information with a topical focus on
company competitors. Business intelligence understood broadly can include the
subset of competitive intelligence.

Business Intelligence can be applied to the following business purposes (MARCKM),

in order to drive business value:

1. Measurement – program that creates a hierarchy of Performance metrics

(see also Metrics Reference Model) and Benchmarking that informs
business leaders about progress towards business goals (AKA Business
process management).

2. Analytics – program that builds quantitative processes for a business to

arrive at optimal decisions and to perform Business Knowledge Discovery.
Frequently involves: data mining, statistical analysis, Predictive
analytics, Predictive modeling, Business process modeling
 3. Reporting/Enterprise Reporting – program that builds infrastructure for
Strategic Reporting to serve the Strategic management of a business, NOT
Operational Reporting. Frequently involves: Data visualization, Executive
information system, OLAP

4. Collaboration/Collaboration platform – program that gets different areas

(both inside and outside the business) to work together through Data
sharing and Electronic Data Interchange.

5. Knowledge Management – program to make the company data driven

through strategies and practices to identify, create, represent, distribute, and
enable adoption of insights and experiences that are true business
knowledge. Knowledge Management leads to Learning Management and
Regulatory compliance/Compliance

GIS System:

Introduction: A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware,

software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of
geographically referenced information.

GIS allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize data in many
ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes,
reports, and charts.

A GIS helps you answer questions and solve problems by looking at your data in a
way that is quickly understood and easily shared.

GIS technology can be integrated into any enterprise information system framework.

A Framework for GIS Analysis

Step 1: Ask: Approaching a problem geographically involves framing the question
from a location-based perspective. What is the problem you are trying to solve or
analyze, and where is it located? Being as specific as possible about the question
you're trying to answer will help you with the later stages of The Geographic
Approach, when you're faced with deciding how to structure the analysis, which
analytic methods to use, and how to present the results to the target audience.

Step 2: Acquire: After clearly defining the problem, it is necessary to determine the
data needed to complete your analysis and ascertain where that data can be found
or generated. The type of data and the geographic scope of your project will help
direct your methods of collecting data and conducting the analysis. If the method of
analysis requires detailed and/or high-level information, it may be necessary to
create or calculate the new data. Creating new data may simply mean calculating
new values in the data table or obtaining new map layers or attributes but may also
require geoprocessing.

Step 3: Examine: You will not know for certain whether the data you have acquired
is appropriate for your study until you thoroughly examine it. This includes visual
inspection, as well as investigating how the data is organized (its schema), how well
the data corresponds to other datasets and the rules of the physical world (its
topology), and the story of where the data came from (its metadata).

Step 4: Analyze: The data is processed and analyzed based on the method of
examination or analysis you choose, which is dependent on the results you hope to
achieve. Do not underestimate the power of "eyeballing" the data. Looking at the
results can help you decide whether the information is valid or useful, or whether
 you should rerun the analysis using different parameters or even a different method.
GIS modeling tools make it relatively easy to make these changes and create new
output.

Step 5: Act: The results and presentation of the analysis are important parts of The
Geographic Approach. The results can be shared through reports, maps, tables, and
charts and delivered in printed form or digitally over a network or on the Web. You
need to decide on the best means for presenting your analysis. You can compare the
results from different analyses and see which method presents the information most
accurately. And you can tailor the results for different audiences. For example, one
audience might require a conventional report that summarizes the analyses and
conveys recommendations or comparable alternatives. Another audience may need
an interactive format that allows them to ask what-if questions or pursue additional
analysis.

Geography is the science of our world. Coupled with GIS, geography is helping us to
better understand the earth and apply geographic knowledge to a host of human
activities. The outcome is the emergence of The Geographic Approach—a new way
of thinking and problem solving that integrates geographic information into how we
understand and manage our planet. This approach allows us to create geographic
knowledge by measuring the earth, organizing this data, and analyzing and modeling
various processes and their relationships. The Geographic Approach also allows us to
apply this knowledge to the way we design, plan, and change our world.

GIS can do so many things:

Map Where Things Are

Mapping where things are lets you find places that have the features you're looking
for, and to see where to take action.

1. Find a feature—People use maps to see where or what an individual feature

is.
2. Finding patterns—Looking at the distribution of features on the map instead
of just an individual feature, you can see patterns emerge.
Map Quantities

People map quantities, like where the most and least are, to find places that meet
their criteria and take action, or to see the relationships between places. This gives
an additional level of information beyond simply mapping the locations of features.

For example, a catalog company selling children's clothes would want to find ZIP
Codes not only around their store, but those ZIP Codes with many young families
with relatively high income. Or, public health officials might not only want to map
physicians, but also map the numbers of physicians per 1,000 people in each census
tract to see which areas are adequately served, and which are not.

Map Densities

While you can see concentrations by simply mapping the locations of features, in
areas with many features it may be difficult to see which areas have a higher
concentration than others. A density map lets you measure the number of features
using a uniform areal unit, such as acres or square miles, so you can clearly see the
distribution.

Mapping density is especially useful when mapping areas, such as census tracts or
counties, which vary greatly in size.

On maps showing the number of people per census tract, the larger tracts might
have more people than smaller ones. But some smaller tracts might have more
people per square mile—a higher density.

Find What's Inside

Use GIS to monitor what's happening and to take specific action by mapping what's
inside a specific area. For example, a district attorney would monitor drug-related
arrests to find out if an arrest is within 1,000 feet of a school--if so, stiffer penalties
apply.

Find What's Nearby

Find out what's occurring within a set distance of a feature by mapping what's
nearby.
Map Change

Map the change in an area to anticipate future conditions, decide on a course of

action, or to evaluate the results of an action or policy.

1. By mapping where and how things move over a period of time, you can gain
insight into how they behave. For example, a meteorologist might study the
paths of hurricanes to predict where and when they might occur in the future.

2. Map change to anticipate future needs. For example, a police chief might study
how crime patterns change from month to month to help decide where officers
should be assigned.
3. Map conditions before and after an action or event to see the impact. A retail
analyst might map the change in store sales before and after a regional ad
campaign to see where the ads were most effective.

GIS Improves Decision Making

Wikipedia writes that “decision making is a process leading to the selection of

a course of action among variations.” If this is a simple decision, like whether to
jump off a cliff or not, then GIS really doesn’t need to be applied. However, most
decisions are complex, involving multiple factors. This is where GIS comes in to
improve and simplify decision making by making the consequences of decisions
easier.
In my experience, this requires relevant, accurate data. The better the data, the
more accurately it is presented, the better the decision. I like to summarize this into
the 4 phases of data:
Data Raw information – for example the number of people
Information Transformed data, for example the number of retired people
Intelligence Understood information, i.e. the changes in the number of people in
helth over time
Wisdom Understood consequences, i.e. the impacts of specific projects on the
number of retired people.

In my experience, especially in government, which is a data rich environment, it is

very difficult to move from data all the way to wisdom.

GIS, besides its “cool” factor, is an important decision making tool because it can
assist this transition from data to wisdom. GIS is not the only tool, but if used
correctly, GIS provides a unique, powerful way to filter data and information to
enhance decision making.
Obviously this unique filter is geography. GIS provides an added dimension to
any decision. In the past, decisions were made upon variables such as “who”, “why,”
“when”, and “how much.” GIS adds “where,” incredibly valuable piece information.
This is an added method for analyzing the various courses of action, and picking the
one that works the best.
People like to see their information visually. It helps everyone understand
problem and what you are trying to present. GIS, which is both visual, and intuitive,
transforms data into wisdom, enhancing the decision making process.

GIS Accelerates Decision Making

GIS accelerates decision making through its clarity in the presentation of

information. A map always presents information in a completely different way than
the tables, charts, and reports that have been used in the past, providing a
completely new picture of information to decision makers. This new picture allows
comparisons and validation (or repudiation) of theories.
So if decision making is a process of selecting a course of action among
variations, then GIS can reduce the number of variations that folks need to look at
by using a geographic filter to exclude some of the variations. Reducing the number
of variations makes the decision that much faster and easier to make.
In order to consistently provide this capability, however, a number of current
obstacles for GIS need to be overcome. In the County we are working to overcome
them, and you will need to as well.

Accuracy and integrity

GIS, like any source of information, needs to present accurate information in

order to enhance decision making. Decisions made on bad information are often
worse than no decisions at all.
Accuracy requirements are accelerating, and moving more and more toward
engineering standards. How many of you used the original TIGER file? Jagged lines,
off by more than 200 feet in some places? When GPS first came out, it was within
10-20 meters of its real location. It would have to be “fixed” back at the office. But
even with all of these issues, it worked very well! TIGER is a good example of this.
TIGER stands for “Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing”
The key to TIGER’s success was in its first two words – Topologically Integrated. In
short – it didn’t matter so much whether it was spatially inaccurate – it was all
inaccurate in the same way, so information wasn’t lost. This is one of the reasons
why I see TIGER as one of the main reasons for the success of GIS – it was accurate
enough to enhance and speed up decision making.

Its accuracy flaws have become more and more pronounced, and caused more and
more problems since its release in the 1990’s. Why? Because other data that was
more accurate did not integrate with it. In many ways, this has led to the birth of
companies and data sources such as Thomas Brothers, GDT, NavTEQ, and TeleAtlas,
which have now become standard for most commercial applications.

As you create data, its accuracy and integrity are critical. Decision makers cannot
think about spatial accuracy, they need to know that their decisions are based upon
facts that are consistent. If accuracy is an issue, or needs to be dealt with during
the decision making process, it will be much slower than it needs to be.

I will get back to some of the initiatives the County is working on in order to improve
the accuracy of the data it uses and shares.

Speed up delivery

My mantra in my work as the GIO is “distribution, distribution, distribution.” You can

have the most accurate, valuable, important GIS information, critical to the decision
making process, but if it cannot be included when and where it needs to be, GIS will
not be able to play its role in accelerating the process.

In the past, this was generally a technical issue. Floppy disks could not hold a parcel
database, much less a 1.5 Tb aerial dataset – do you remember the issues with
backup tapes, their formats, and readers? Now we have email, the internet, 100
Mb/second connections, CDs and DVDs . Basically, if you didn’t have the data
already, you would have to figure out some other, less accurate method for providing
decision support.

As well, computer systems are less complex. At first I used UNIX workstation, to
PCs, and now to the internet via ArcIMS and ArcGIS Server. The best method for
distribution is via web applications. Everyone already knows the buttons, and people
expect not to need training before they use a program.

GIS is now entering the realm of true distribution via web services that combine
services in a flexible, generic, way – think Google Earth, Yahoo Maps, and Mashups.
You don’t even need to know where the information is coming from.

The days of a “map request” being put into a queue for processing are disappearing.
Now the main thrust of GIS is to develop information for addition to “map services”
that provide a wide range of applications that are combined from different map
services. This is a sea change in the way that GIS is presented.

Being able to find the best data from the best source without needing a personal
contact, license, and especially, being able to combine and provide that information
over a medium (the internet) that does not require specialized software like MapInfo
or ArcGIS puts the information in the hands of decision makers whenever and
wherever they want it.

This flexibility in combining information on maps is the final method for using GIS to
accelerate decision making. It no longer matters where the information is coming
from, as long as it is kept up to date. Even the public is getting into the GIS data
creation world, and this can become a huge resource for certain types of information.
That is a topic for another day.

Data Sharing

What does this mean for GIS professionals? The days of “data silos” are really
breaking down – whereas the days of “data sharing” are here. One of the County’s
main problems is the inability to share data we want to share with agencies that
need it because we are hindered by legacy licensing. Imagine what the public would
say if emergency response to an earthquake was hindered by the fact that the
County fire department did not have GIS data that the city fire department did.
Would the fact that it was licensed really be accepted?
By considering all above GIS advantages, the Home Care Department of the
Swedish city of Danderyd, Linkoping University and Linkoping Software
Company Optimal Solutions AB came up with a solution AB came up with a
solution. They created a staff planning system called Laps Care that enables rapid
and efficient planning of home care staff schedules. Laps Care has been used daily
for elderly home care planning since November 2002.
By this system, user saving time about 7 percent, earlier the schedule for home
helth aide visits is normally planned several days in Advance. Some visits may need
to be shortened or postponed or have extra staff allocated. Last minute changes are
made to plan each morning. Making these changes might consume 30 to 40 minutes
per day.
The system uses data to calculate travel time between visits, generating a plan that
represents an optimal solution where the right person with the right skills provides
the right care at the right time.
The system divides the workload much more evenly among caregivers than earlier
manual system and uses staff member’s special skills more effectively.
Although travel time have been reduced.
The system is valued more for producing accurate travel time estimates and good
working schedules that leaves enough time for travelling.
Senior staff members initially posed problems by trying to keep the more desirable
tasks for themselves, leaving harder work for their newer colleagues. Laps care
eliminated this inequitable situation by creating the fairest possible schedule for
everyone.

Summary

In summary - I have noted that “decision making is a process leading to the

selection of a course of action among variations.” GIS can help accelerate the
decision making process because it provides a unique filter, geography, that can
reduce the number of choices in a course of action. It helps decision makers quickly
move from data to information to intelligence to wisdom, increasing decision speed
and accuracy.

What decision makers need from GIS is accuracy, consistency, and confidence in
what it is showing. As well, sharing and distributing GIS information as freely and
quickly as possible will reduce the cost, increase the value, and increase the speed
with which GIS can be made part of any decision making process, accelerating
decision making with GIS.

Reference:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

2. http://www.sysoptima.com/

3. http://media.govtech.net/