Enterprise Business Processes and Reporting (IS 6214) MBS MIMAS 2010 / rd November 2010 Fergal Carton Business Information Systems

Last week Functional areas and goals –Porters value chain (Twix for original article!) –Where is border between primary / secondary? Eg. BoI / Tesco Customer Service = primary? Basic flows of information and integration Northwind example: –what can you tell about business from data? Upmarket specialty food delicatessen International products Wholesale customers (eg. Hotel, farmers markets,...

This week Basic flows of information and integration PCB process mapping exercise? Sales order process and Cucina –Sample process documentation Feedback from Excel skills survey Northwind example: –Normalisation of data –Customers and sales orders

Sales or purchase process A commitment by one party to another for –Products –Price, discount –Delivery date The deal confirms the above on an order Efficient communication of order to back office for execution Shipment to customer Receipt of goods, record any anomalies Invoice Paymemt Physical processes Virtual processes

Sales order process Provide price / quotation Give commit date for delivery Take order Dispatch goods and invoice Receive payment from customer

Background work for Cucina Research fresh bread business –Visit points of sale, note products / categories –Look up Hanrahan’s –Arbutus Breads / ABC Alternative Bread Co. –Think about sales ordering process Sales and purchase process for Cucina Sample product data

Sample bread products

Strengths of process mapping Separates physical from virtual flows Flexible Intuitive Fast Facilitates sharing of ideas Helps define roles and responsibilities Highlights potential for automation –Bottlenecks, delays, errors, redundancy, …

Weaknesses of process mapping Biased representation? –Difficult to meet all people involved –Dependent on accuracy of information given by participants –Holes in understanding -> poor process –Doesn’t take into account new processes –Interpreted differently –Consistency in analysis when using multiple analysts –Only maps repetitive processes? –What about manual work? Find right level of abstraction Only theoretical? Complexity / overcomplication

How will you use the process map? Spot problems Optimise process Tool to explain / educate Map alternatives Draw “how we would like the process to work”

Feedback on Excel Survey

Northwind Data : Products

Object-Oriented Systems Development Bahrami © Irwin/ McGraw-Hill Data : Categories

Normalisation of QuantityPerUnit Quantity of packages in unitPackage dimensions Product as sold Package Quantity of packages in unit Weight of package

Normalisation: 1NF

Normalisation using Excel

Northwind Data : Customers

Northwind Data : Suppliers

Northwind Data : Order headers

Northwind Data : Order details