The development of a methodology for the evaluation of installed CAPM system’s effectiveness and efficiency

The objective of this work was to design, develop and evaluate an audit for a Computer Aided Production Management (CAPM) system. Such systems, despite their costs of purchase and implementation, find wide application in industry but there is still considerable debate as to their contribution to the overall performance of a company. A variety of possible methodologies were explored. However, it was found that most of the existing analytical techniques tended to focus on a comparison of systems with respect to best practice or to require data that a company was unlikely to have. Best practice is not an absolute measure, nor does it take account of different company types and their individual requirements. A flexible methodology, 'the CAPM Audit', designed to establish the effectiveness and efficiency of any installed CAPM system, has been developed. The audit is a development of the Delphi approach and is designed to establish the contribution of the CAPM system to the company's overall competitive position. In its development, a generic model for any CAPM system was devised to facilitate analysis without reference to any particular technology, management mode, or manufacturing control system. The audit developed (in the form of a workbook) consists of four stages: stage one establishes the context; stage two determines the underlying architecture of the system; stage three quantifies the contribution to the company's competitive position; and stage four identifies the causes of any failure of the CAPM system. The design of the audit is such that: it enables a systematic investigation of the effectiveness and efficiency of an installed CAPM system to be completed; it enables the CAPM system's contribution to the company to be identified; and it also enables any inadequacies to be determined

Human Resource Information Systems for Competitive Advantage: Interviews with Ten Leaders

[Excerpt] Increasingly, today\u27s organizations use computer technology to manage human resources (HR). Surveys confirm this trend (Richards-Carpenter, 1989; Grossman and Magnus, 1988; Human Resource Systems Professionals 1988; KPMGPeat Marwick, 1988). HR professionals and managers routinely have Personnel Computers (PCs) or computer terminals on their desks or in their departments. HR computer applications, once confined to payroll and benefit domains, now encompass incentive compensation, staffing, succession planning, and training. Five years ago, we had but a handful of PC-based software applications for HR management. Today, we find a burgeoning market of products spanning a broad spectrum of price, sophistication, and quality (Personnel Journal, 1990). Top universities now consider computer literacy a basic requirement for students of HR, and many consulting firms and universities offer classes designed to help seasoned HR professionals use computers in their work (Boudreau, 1990). Changes in computer technology offer expanding potential for HR management (Business Week, 1990; Laudon and Laudon, 1988)

Elements for Response Time Statistics in ERP Transaction Systems

We present some measurements and ideas for response time statistics in ERP systems. It is shown that the response time distribution of a given transaction in a given system is generically a log-normal distribution or, in some situations, a sum of two or more log-normal distributions. We present some arguments for this form of the distribution based on heuristic rules for response times, and we show data from performance measurements in actual systems to support the log-normal form. Deviations of the log-normal form can often be traced back to performance problems in the system. Consequences for the interpretation of response time data and for service level agreements are discussed.Comment: revtex, twocolumn, 8 pages, 13 figures. figures replaced by coloured version

Development and Deployment of VoiceXML-Based Banking Applications

In recent times, the financial sector has become one of the most vibrant sectors of the Nigerian economy with about twenty five banks after the bank consolidation / merger exercise. This sector presents huge business investments in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is also plausible to say that the sector today is the largest body of ICT services and products users. It is no gainsaying the fact that so many Nigerians now carry mobile phones across the different parts of the country. However, applications that provide voice access to real-time banking transactions from anywhere, anytime via telephone are still at their very low stage of adoption across the Nigerian banking and financial sector. A versatile speech-enabled mobile banking application has been developed using VXML, PHP, Apache and MySQL. The developed application provides real-time access to banking services, thus improving corporate bottom-line and Quality of Service (QoS) for customer satisfaction