Electronic Commerce Semester 2 Term 2 Lecture 27

Emerging Business Requirements Emerging requirements in manufacturing or logistics systems can be generalised into three categories: –The changes created by customer behaviour –The applications that reflect accepted business practices addressing current business trends and strategies –The underlying information technology that enables the above applications

Customer-Driven Manufacturing Customers dictate how business is done today Customers determine what is built, how it is built and when it is delivered Even the design of many products today is influenced by the customer, not the supplier Assemble-, make- and configure to order capabilities are supplementing traditional manufacturing methods and forcing manufacturers in many industires into what is known as product mass customisation, that is, manufacturing products to the specifications of each customer

Rapid Internal Response to Demand Changes Customers expect manufacturers to respond quickly to changing demands This has forced many manufacturing companies into organisational and operational restructuring In the case of organisational restructuring, many companies have benefitted from reviewing current business processes and reorienting them from a department viewpoint to a view across the enterprise Eliminating redundant tasks in business processes has become an important goal for many manufacturers

Efficiently Managing Supply Chain Complexity Manufacturers need to efficiently manage supply chains that are more complex than ever before With production efficiency already high in many organisations, one way to increase profits is to reduce inventory, purchasing and distribution costs Such pressures have spurred interest in manufacturing and logistics supply-chain management software that link design, manufacturing and distribution processes through information systems

Benefits of This… Along with cost savings and efficiencies, supply-chain management tools may be able to provide managers with new insight into the production process by focusing on the coordination and fulfilment of customer orders

Manufacturing Information Systems The characteristics of information systems depend on the type of manufacturing operations, and can be characterised as discrete, batch process, continuous process, or hybrid (combining more than one form)

Discrete Operations In discrete operations, raw material is processed in distinct units Work in progress can be tracked by lot, work order, or batch Typical discrete lot based industries include semiconductors, disk drives and assembly operations in the auto and commercial aircraft industries

Batch Process Operations In batch process operations, such as pharmaceutical manufacturing, material is converted from one form or state to another through various processing steps and is tracked by batch, lot, or mass quantity Material in batch process-type operations may be spread across several conversion steps at once Batch process manufacturers include fast-food, beverage, pharmaceutical and chemical companies

Continuous Process Operations In continuous process operations, such as oil refining, raw material is processed without interruption in a continuous flow Some prouducers, such as specialty chemical companies, may require a combination of batch process and discrete operations to manufacture their products