Discuss aspects of the various supply chain elements that brought all of this together at the point of care. How far back can you trace it?
1 – Seeing the Supply Chains
Peppard and Ward discuss value chain analysis with respect to MIS strategy in Chapter 6. Industrial engineers typically analyze supply chains in terms of the movement of material goods from upstream suppliers down to consumption points at our points of production. That concept applies to knowledge as well as physical goods, and that knowledge stream is often of critical concern in healthcare. It can also be seen in predecessor behaviors that lead to circumstances as they are encountered at a point of production. These less traditional supply chains follow similar patterns as material goods, but their analysis can be more awkward because it’s hard to see what’s happening at the various stages of the supply chain.
Consider an example from the healthcare sector: evidence-based medicine. A physician sees a patient with a set of symptoms that results in a diagnosis, and the most appropriate treatments are prescribed based upon sound medical evidence and knowledge. If that scenario is the point of production, we can ask what supply chains lead to up to that point. Where did the knowledge, evidence, and treatment plan that the physician use ultimately come from? Discuss aspects of the various supply chain elements that brought all of this together at the point of care. How far back can you trace it? Comment on what it means that most of the supply chain elements you discuss are likely to be outside of the organization in which that physician works.
Response Guideline
Post your response of 3-5 paragraphs (about 400-500 words) early in the week, and then reply to at least two initial responses of your peers, particularly focusing on responses that might differ from your own. Also respond appropriately to anyone who posts questions against your own postings.
2 – Expanded Products & Services
E-commerce has revolutionized the way customers and providers interact to exchange value. A lot of the literature tends to talk in terms of improvements and flexibility in the buying process, as well as economies of scale that are introduced as different levels of the value stream are removed or smoothed out. Typically not discussed — although brought up by Peppard and Ward’s as informating the product — is the extent to which the digitization of the process and value stream enable a dramatic re-thinking of the products and services themselves, often with a significant expansion of the product/service profile for the organization.
What are some of the ways that organizations have found themselves offering new or expanded products and services because of their shift to e-commerce? We’re not necessarily looking here for ways that existing products have been digitized, although that is certainly a subset of the expansions we’re talking about. What are some ways that organizations have actually been able to invent entirely new product or service offerings as a result of this digitization? Do these products and services still have analogs in the brick-and-mortar value space?
Response Guideline
Post your response of 1-3 paragraphs (about 200-300 words) early in the week, and then reply to at least two initial responses of your peers, particularly focusing on responses that might differ from your own. Also respond appropriately to anyone who posts questions against your own postings.
3 – Requirements for Cargo System
Consider the cargo system that we’ve been analyzing use cases for. Now we want to write some business requirements for that system. In reality, drawing use cases is usually something we do at the same time that we try to define requirement statements. A good requirements list will mimic what we learn when developing use cases, and good use cases will often represent the bulk of our needed requirement statements. As stated in this week’s video, requirements aren’t something that are simply “out there” somewhere — they actually emerge from the analysis process. Drawing use cases is a good way to help those ideas emerge. However, there will also be requirement statements that are needed that aren’t necessarily visible in a use case diagram since the use cases tend to focus on the process that a stakeholder uses. A full set of requirements usually include more than just use cases.
Try writing and posting 3-5 business requirement statements for the Cargo Management System. Try to NOT post requirements that others have already posted. Respond to the ideas posted by classmates to try to improve the statements that others write, or critique them if you disagree with them. We’re not looking for perfect requirement statements here as we might want them in a class on requirements. We’re interested in discussing requirements generally without getting hung up on the technical details of how we’d create them in a systems engineering class.
Here are a few examples of the types of requirements statements we’re looking for here:
- The system shall minimize the crane moves during vessel loading/discharge.
- The system shall preposition empty containers where they are most likely to be needed by a shipper.
- The system shall route containers to minimize distance traveled and vehicle transfers.
Feel free to play with ideas like these based on your earlier use case analysis.
Response Guideline
Post your response of 3-5 requirement statements early in the week, and then reply to at least two initial responses of your peers, particularly focusing on responses that might differ from your own. Also respond appropriately to anyone who posts questions against your own postings.
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