Reference no: EM132304803

Case Study - "Managing Supply Chain Operationswith ERP Software"

Course Learning Outcome:

Identify the individual components of operations and supply chain and analyze their interrelationships

Program Learning Outcome

PLO3 Demonstrate knowledge of specialized functional concepts, theories /or models and apply them in an organizational /or financial market context

The goal of this case study is to get you familiar with the concepts, terminology, and the processes of supply chain operations and inventory management, as well as ERP software systems and especially inventory management through ERP. Throughout the project, you will be using the online ERP and inventory management system, namely SalesBinder website.

Please follow the steps listed below in this project:
1) Register with SalesBinder website with the "Forever Free" plan

2) Decide on the business that you will be managing in this exercise (ex: toy shop, flower shop, perfume shop, etc.). Make sure that your business involves the purchase and sales of tangible products. Even if you select toy shop as an example, please do not use the exact names that are given in here. It is preferred that you do not select toy shop as your business.

3) Establish your company. Enter your name as the company name, and upload a company logo (any appropriate logo that you can grab from the Internet) as your profile photo. Adjust other settings as you wish. You do not need to enter any address.

4) Establish your item categories. Create 2 item categories. You can do this by clicking "Manage Categories" on the left menu, under the title inventory, and then clicking "Add New Category". For example, if you have selected a toy shop, your categories can be "Superhero Action Figures" and "Toy Musical Instruments", or anything that you wish. Make sure to come up with the category names on your own, because the output of every group in this case study is expected to be different.

5) Establish your items. Create 3 items (by clicking "Inventory List" and "Add Inventory Item") that belong to the first category, and 2 items that belong to the second category. So there will be a total of 5 items in your inventory. Select appropriate prices and profit margins for each of your products, as well as selecting other relevant information. Make sure to start with enough inventory of each item, so that you can fulfill the upcoming orders.

6) Establish your locations and zones. Create 2 different locations and 4 zones, again using the menu on the left. These are the locations of your warehouses and the zones in your warehouses. Of course, you will be clicking the "Locations & Zones" link for this. The first location (ex: "Al Ain Sanaiya Warehouse") should contain 2 zones (ex: "Al Ain Sanaiya Pallet Picking" and "Al Ain SanaiyaCase Picking"), and the other location should contain 2 other zones.

7) For each item that you created, enter the location and zone of that item.

8) Claim your customers. Create 3 customers. Give appropriate company names to these customers. For example, if you are a toy store, your customers can be named "Toys R Good", etc.

9) Know your contacts at your customers. For each customer, create 2 contact people each, through clicking "Address Book" on the left, and then taking the other necessary actions. When creating a contact, make sure to link it with the customer company, and to specify an e-mail address for this contact person. When you are finished, these contact people will be seen on the right hand side when you view the account of that customer.

10) Start taking orders! Create your first customer order! To do this, click on "Invoices" on the left hand side and then "Create New Invoice" button. Your first order should contain 3 different item types, in different quantities. You can add items to your invoice by clicking "Add Inventory Item" at the bottom of the invoice. You can also change the quantities for each item. Once you are finished, "Save Invoice".

11) Start receiving payments. Currently the invoice that you created is not paid. Click on the invoice, then click on "Enter a Payment" button on the right. Assume that the full payment has been made by the customer for this invoice.

12) Ship the customer orders. Now you can dispatch the shipment for this invoice. Click on "Mark this invoice as dispatched" on the right.

13) Create 2 other invoices, receive the payments for them, and then make their shipments.

14) Replenish your inventory with purchase orders. Now is the time to order some items for one of your warehouses. For this, you firstly need suppliers. Suppliers supply products, and that's why they are called suppliers. Create 2 suppliers. Also create one contact person for each supplier in your Address Book (by clicking "Address Book" on the left).

15) Now you should specify suppliers, namely where (which supplier) each item is supplied from. The first item category that you created is supplied by the first supplier. The second item category is supplied by the second supplier. Link the items to their suppliers. While doing this, make sure that each item also has a location and zone.

16) Then create a purchase order. This is your first order from your suppliers. First click "Purchase Orders" on the left, and then the "Create Purchase Order" button on the top. Since this first order is for replenishing our warehouse, select "Delivered to your locations". Select the appropriate location. Note that the location that you will make the shipment to has to be the location where this item category is stored. Add at least one item in your purchase order. Of course, this item can only be an item that the selected supplier is supplying.

17) Receive your purchase orders. Go to this purchasing order. On the right, you can edit the "Receiving Information" for this purchase order (P.O.). Edit it such that it arrives today. Then when you save the receiving information, you will notice that the Status of the P.O. has changed to "Received". Also, if you go to the inventory for that item, you will see that the item's quantity has increased in the exact quantity of your order :)

18) Now create one more purchase order, this time for two other items in the other location.

19) Analyze your reports in SalesBinder. Click on the links under "Reports" on the left. You will see a financial summary of your actions.

Report

1) Screenshots from SalesBinder
The first part of your report will consist of screenshots of SalesBinder, for your company. Make sure to zoom in or out, so that all, or at least most of the rows are visible, while the font is large enough that it can be seen in the printout. You will need to select and crop only the middle part of the browser's contents. An example snapshot is given below (Note that this is my company, and has only 3 items. You should have 5 items, as described above. Also you should have more details for each item, as described above.):

Please create screenshots of the following for the first part of your report:
• Address Book
• Customer List
• Supplier List
• Inventory List
• Manage Categories
• Locations & Zones
• Purchase Orders (Also take screenshots of the details of each order, by clicking each order. So there will be a total of three screenshots: First, the screenshot of list of purchase orders, and then screenshots of each of the two purchase orders.)
• Invoices (Similarly, besides the screenshot of list of all invoices, also take screenshot s of each invoice, and include in your report. There are three invoices, so there will be four screenshots here.)
• Financial Reports

Notice that there should be 14 screenshots in the first part of your report. If a screenshot does not cover all the contents in the middle, do not worry, but do your best that it does. Also make sure that the text in the screenshots are readable in hardcopy printouts.2)

Comments and Suggestions

In the second part of your report, answer the following questions, giving at least 3 plausible answers for each part (your 3+ answers should be in bulleted format for easy reading). Your answer to this question should be at least one page, because you are giving at least 15 answers:
a) What have you learned in this case study so far?
b) What are the advantages of using an online software service (a web service), rather than using a software that you install on your laptop? Hint: You can do some Internet search to answer this question.
c) How usable was the SalesBinder.com online software service?
d) What would be your suggestions to improve this software?
e) What would be your suggestions to improve this case study?

3) Process Flow Chart

In the second part of your report, draw a process flow chart of how yourcustomer's purchase order is fulfilled using SalesBinder. Notice that there will be three agents in the process, namely, Customer, Your Company, and your Supplier. Draw the swimlanes properly in the process flow chart. You are expected to use the LucidChart.comservice for this and put the snapshot of your process flow chart into your report.

Note: Choose anything related to agriculture or food the location in Alain in Abu Dhabi UAE

Attachment:- Case Study.rar