need help
Your proposed information system is still a contender. The executives, however, are asking whether it is too limited to prevent the shadow IT projects that continue to take place throughout the organization.
They believe that you have considered what the organization does now, but how will your system adapt to new products and processes? Read Nicolet Plastics Quick Response Manufacturing Strategy for a concrete example of what they mean. You’ll have to quell their fears, so it’s time for another memo. Please focus on these points:
Identify any significant changes that your organization might reasonably make in its product offerings in the next three years. Explain the competitive benefits of this change.
Explain how your information system addresses or can adapt to the introduction of these new product offerings.
Give one reason why capabilities for the new product offerings should or should not be incorporated in the initial information system design. Justify your reason.
This memo should be 35 pages long.
Reference
IQMS. No date.Nicolet Plastics Quick Response Manufacturing Strategy. https://www.iqms.com/files/case-studies/quick-response-manufacturing.pdf
Absolutely no plagiarism
Please follow all directions given above and in bold.
Use the reference above plus others (scholarly references)
APA format
Please include graphs to explain or reference your memo
Please read the article and reference the paper posted below and follow the template for the format given below. ( It will help you with the questions above)
Looking for thorough and quality A++ work.
Memo should be 3-5 pages long
KAREN PROPOSAL 7
To: Dr. Phil
From:
Date:
Subject: Karen proposal
Information System Proposal
Introduction
Clinicians face a rising amount of clinical data and rising volumes of research on medical work as they treat patients. While many physicians use electronic databases and health record systems to manage the exponentially increasing amount of information, clinical decision support systems come in handy to boost efficient decision-making and ensure patient safety. However, the absence of an efficient decision support system results in shadows in the IT projects. Karen Clinic Company’s current internal information system has failed; it is inadequate and outdated. Hence, it requires a changeover to a new system that will upgrade the quality of service, operation stability, and enforce IT compliance.
Proposed Information System
My proposal is a clinical decision support system (CDSS) that considers clinical decision-makers’ cognitive functions and data interactions. The problem in context is the need to fix a new system that reduces or eliminates inadequacy and inefficiency leading to Shadow It functionalities in the current information system in Karen Clinic. The demand for the system is high because it handles multi-disciplinary tasks that require integration of large volumes of information in the clinical domain (Yao & Kumar, 2013). Notably, CDSS intends to monitor projects that fly under the radar without passing through the right formal channels such as IT governance. Thereby enables the executives to restrict and stop attempts of employees to install tools that can bypass the internal controls.
Functions Important to Business
CDSS information reflects the process for making decisions intellectually and contextually to boost the effort by clinicians. It makes dynamic predictions that consider the longitudinal nature of the disease, allowing the clinicians to interact with the system effectively. The system makes clinical decisions, which include predicting the patient’s prognosis, diagnosis, and selecting optimal treatments. The decisions are interdependent but reflect on data flow patterns (Shah, .2014) CDSS relates ordered steps that lead to new data significant to make decisions. Consequently, it improves IT governance in the sense that executives can control the installation and configuration of new systems that can cause outages due to lack of documentation. It would reduce the risk of undercover infringement to the information security system of the Company.
The system allows input of patient history, physical examination details, and symptoms, which directs the clinicians on what diagnostic test to take. Besides, the system offers a positive feedback loop for the construction of the decision paradigm. Also, it combines lab tests and diagnosis data to allow for accurate predictions of prognosis to patients. Additionally, the system has a high-level algorithm that encapsulates the communication characteristics of the Karen clinic. In the context of shadow IT projects, it restricts the development of data repositories to manage patient’s data as it is prone to losses.
Data Management
Health care professionals use cognitive skills to assess healthcare data. Critical skillsets are used to analyze differential diagnosis alongside experiential skills which combine clinical information to make clinical decisions. According to Hersh, data sharing is seamlessly evident in the interoperable clinical environment. Both the system and health care professionals share data to create a medical logic, and hence inter-professional collaboration is efficient at this point of view. Besides, data management employs a longitudinal insight. Many clinical procedures incur repetition; hence temporal longitudinal data establishes a foundation for predictive decision support.
The system has a document management system that identifies knowledge repositories folders hidden from the organization to counter knowledge waste and losses.
Data Types
In a clinical setting, the health professional primarily uses data like patient records. Regardless of the hospital characteristics, the system’s absolute data are diagnostic test results, patients’ detailed health history, progress, prognosis, and treatment procedures. All are synchronized towards decision making alongside the health professional cognitive skills and knowledge. The records include the use of descriptions and figures. Common data types are character, integer and floating-point often stored in bytes range 0 to 8.
Storage Methods
Scanned documents, diagnostic results, patient records, and images from physicians are stored in the CDSS database system, where only authorized clinicians can access and retrieve the information captured in an organized manner. The CDSS uses a file storage system; data is aligned in a hierarchical structure to allow for easy navigation while others are stored in block forms. Some are stored as objects to allow quick configuration and easy retrieval. Nevertheless, it utilizes unstructured manner storage of physicians notes and general patients requests. However, the system employs cloud storage that enforces data encryption. It becomes undecipherable to unauthorized users.
Data Quality
A high-quality health service requires proper handling of clinical information. CDSS considers extensive delineation of data quality, which includes correct and complete data in the system. Unstructured data leads to increased chances of inaccuracy and challenges like less concordance (Weiskopf,.2013). Another property for the system allows for reasonable information breadth and density that enhances the strength of prognosis prediction. The system has robust firewall technology that protects the data itself. It counters the insiders who attempt to bypass interior cybersecurity.
The transition of System Functions
Previously, the clinic used an electronic health record automation system. It intended to streamline the clinician’s workflow by easing access to patient records and information. It had many access points of data that increases the chances to breach of security protocol. Often there is inflexibility to retrieve data and specific representations of information. Consequently, the aforementioned inherent need to replace it drives the company towards the use of CDSS. It has tools that clinicians can use to access reports and patients data easily. The cloud system has a limitation to a few access points; it segments data to only a few trusted users enabling improved data security and elimination of shadow projects.
Evidence of feasibility
At the University of Utah, a study shows the use of a CDSS system is effective in data extraction; it is an easing tool for the decision making process. Data extraction improves the sensitivity of algorithms, enhancing prediction capabilities. However, it is more expensive than an electronic health record automation system because more money is spent on integrating cybersecurity. All Scripts is a similar CDSS system that is successfully proven efficient in over 800 clinical guides. The CDSS is based on decision-making processes compared to other information systems such as management information systems that collect and process information from other sources of the institution.
References
Hersh W. Secondary Use of Clinical Data from Electronic Health Records [Online]. Available from:
https://dmice.ohsu.edu/hersh/secondary-use-trec.pdf
Yao W, Kumar A. CONFlexFlow: integrating flexible clinical pathways into clinical decision support systems using context and rules. Decis Support Syst. 2013;55(2):499515.
Shah K. Case-study-an answer to analytical, clinical decision making. J Orthop Case Rep. 2014;4(2):34.
Weiskopf NG, Hripcsak G, Swaminathan S, Weng C. Defining and measuring electronic health records completeness. J Biomed Inform. 2013;46(5):8306. IQMS, the IQMS logo and EnterpriseIQ are registered trademarks of IQMS. All other company names are trademarks of their respective owners. The information herein is subject to change without notice. 2015 IQMS. All rights reserved.
If someone gave you a week of time, what would you
do with it? A whole seven days is exactly what Nicolet
Plastics, Inc. is delivering its customers with its innovative
Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) program. Through
an enterprise-wide initiative that relentlessly emphasizes
lead time reduction, Nicolet Plastics is revolutionizing
time-based competition and make-to-order strategies
to ensure manufacturing excellence.
Nicolet Plastics credits a large portion of its QRM success
to the flexibility, depth, user-defined fields and forms,
process and workflow design and database integrity of
its manufacturing ERP and MES system, EnterpriseIQ
from IQMS. Without it, the QRM strategy would be very
difficult to deploy on a day-to-day basis. Read below
to learn more about Nicolet Plastics innovative quick
response manufacturing initiative and the results its
customers are experiencing.
Why Quick Response Manufacturing?
Nicolet Plastics is a total solutions provider of parts
and components for a wide array of customers, from
disposable packaging to high-end medical parts for MRI
equipment. The company specializes in low to moderate
volume, highly complex custom parts in a wide variety
of materials. Despite the diverse industries Nicolet
Plastics produces for, the one commonality between its
customers is the need for consistent products that drive
down costs and meet volume needs.
Observing the marketplace, Nicolet Plastics knew it
needed to make a change. Nicolet Plastics watched as
the major multi-national firms were increasingly moving
their high volume, minimally complex molded business
offshore to avoid rising costs at home. The company also
observed that although the high volume business was
leaving, the low to moderate volume business was not,
as these companies were not able to take advantage of
the offshore workforce.
Nicolet Plastics realized that the marketplaces focus on
long-run production optimization offered an untapped
Nicolet Plastics Quick Response Manufacturing Strategy
www.iqms.com 1.866.367.3772 [emailprotected]
Nicolet Plastics, Inc. has
accomplished more over the
past 25 years than many of its
top competitors have in more
than 50and theyre just getting
started. Originally established in
1986 in Mountain, Wis., a small
community located in the middle
of the Chequamegon-Nicolet
National Forest, its easy to see
that Nicolet Plastics has come
a long way since those humble
beginnings. Today, Nicolet Plastics,
an ISO certified company, serves
its ever-growing customer
base from a 41,000 square foot
production facility and focuses on
complex industrial and medical
components and assemblies.
In the beginning, Nicolet Plastics
was a company that made
parts. However, thanks to the
development of its Total Solutions
approach, Nicolet Plastics is doing
much more than simply making
parts. Today, theyre solving
problems.
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IQMS, the IQMS logo and EnterpriseIQ are registered trademarks of IQMS. All other company names are trademarks of their respective owners. The information herein is subject to change without notice. 2015 IQMS. All rights reserved.
opportunity in the low to moderate volume market. To thrive in the economic landscape,
stay ahead of the curve and remain competitive, Nicolet Plastics decided to exploit its
strength in excellence at complexity and turn market weaknesses into opportunities. It
began looking for manufacturing philosophies that supported the needs of short-run,
complex part customers.
That is when Nicolet Plastics discovered a solution right in its own backyard. Quick
Response Manufacturing is a consortium between the manufacturing industry and the
engineering school at the University of Wisconsin. It was developed and published by
founding director, Rajan Suri, who defines the program as the pursuit of the reduction of
lead time in all aspects of a companys operation, embracing a relentless emphasis on time
reduction that has a long-term impact on every aspect of the company.
For Nicolet Plastics, the key to making the QRM program work was two-fold: Company-
wide embracement of operational change and the business and manufacturing tools
found in EnterpriseIQ. Before embarking on this new initiative, Nicolet Plastics established
a few goals:
Reduce total order to delivery time of parts by 14 days (from 21 days to 7 days)
Reduce finished goods inventory
Be able to respond to unexpected changes in demand without a degradation of service
Develop a cross-trained workforce for flexibility, including the creation of a cross
functional quick response office cell
Reduce last shot (last good piece) to first shot time (first good piece) by 50 percent
Beginning the QRM Process
When implementation of QRM began, Nicolet Plastics started by addressing its workforce
and creating more flexibility with its personnel by ditching the old way of looking at
production staffing. For example, traditional floor management would have required a
mold hanger, materials handler, production and process technicians, a supervisor and a
manager for each shift. Nicolet Plastics decided to ignore job titles and employee categories
by defining the talents and skills required for an ideal shift on the production floor.
Nicolet Plastics built a skills matrix, including both
soft skills (interpersonal, ability to succeed in a team
environment) and hard skills (technical abilities,
intelligence), including gaps between the target skills
mix and the actual. With this thought process in
mind, Nicolet Plastics immediately saw crossover. An
employee previously defined as an operator might also
be able to clean out a hopper, a skill that crossed over
into materials handling. Once defined, Nicolet Plastics
evaluated its employees in terms of skill levels through
written and practical testing to determine competency
levels and establish training necessary to create an ideal
shift.
For Nicolet Plastics, the
key to making the QRM
program work was
two-fold: Company-
wide embracement of
operational change
and the business and
manufacturing tools
found in EnterpriseIQ.
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http://www.iqms.com
IQMS, the IQMS logo and EnterpriseIQ are registered trademarks of IQMS. All other company names are trademarks of their respective owners. The information herein is subject to change without notice. 2015 IQMS. All rights reserved.
www.iqms.com 1.866.367.3772 [emailprotected]
IQMS, the IQMS logo and EnterpriseIQ are registered trademarks of IQMS. All other company names are trademarks of their respective owners. The information herein is subject to change without notice. 2015 IQMS. All rights reserved.
A credentialing program was established in-house and employees were rewarded for
technical abilities and willingness to learn new production and process-related skills.
New pay ranges were defined for each skill level, so as employees progressed in their
ability to handle more complex issues, value to the company increased and so did wages.
120-plus hours per employee were logged over a three year period, equivalent to a week
of training for every employee since the initiative began.
Once the new employee roles were defined and established, Nicolet began tackling
the individual QRM initiatives. The first was to change its accounting mindset: Because
standard costing is not a key tenet of lean accounting, Nicolet Plastics decided to track
actual costs instead. The challenge was to get employees thinking in terms of time and
not in terms of overhead absorption. It is not reasonable to assume that all of a companys
costs will increase as production volume increases, but that is exactly what standard cost
accounting assumes. Nicolet Plastics now tracks actual costs through the proactive tools
in IQMS RealTime Process Monitoring system, as well as detailed exception reporting,
for a proactive value add/value stream approach.
The second initiative was to reduce batch sizes. Due to the nature of low volume customers,
Nicolet Plastics typically handles as many as 90 to 100 mold changes per week. QRM
practices slicing time by sharing resources (in this case, presses) with competing target
market segments (long and short runs) without creating backlogs and queues. In order
to cut time, Nicolet Plastics schedules its long jobs that can run unattended over the
weekend in what is referred to as a swim lane. This prevents short jobs from getting
backlogged or delayed behind a long-running job (we all understand how frustrating it
is to wait in the express lane behind someone at the grocery store who clearly has more
than 10 items in his cart!).
Nicolet Plastics achieves this unattended, lights out weekend production with the help
of IQMS RealTime Production Monitoring system that supports machine management
in real time. All aspects of Nicolet Plastics production (total parts created, production
time, downtime, rejects and parts remaining) are tracked immediately and applied to the
order, while simultaneously updating the schedule.
Work center performance can be viewed from any
computer on the network and even remotely, for
improved efficiency, visibility and productivity.
If RealTime detects that there is a problem with an
unattended swim lane, like a press has stopped running,
Nicolet Plastics uses the EnterpriseIQ business activity
monitoring feature, IQAlert, to generate an automated
message (text, email or voice message) to the on-call
press technician. The technician only needs to come to work if an exception occurs.
Nicolet Plastics achieves
this unattended, lights
out weekend production
with the help of IQMS
RealTime Production
Monitoring system…
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IQMS, the IQMS logo and EnterpriseIQ are registered trademarks of IQMS. All other company names are trademarks of their respective owners. The information herein is subject to change without notice. 2015 IQMS. All rights reserved.
Addressing Scheduling Complexity and Improving Customer Service
With the critical component of properly handling customers needs top of mind, Nicolet
Plastics next focused on managing job complexity. Nicolet Plastics was previously
supporting hundreds of different materials and thousands of mold/insert combinations.
Variability is the essence of complexity, so Nicolet Plastics had to focus on eliminating
dysfunctional variability, such as excessive inventory, ineffective systems and rework.
Using the rich data in EnterpriseIQ, Nicolet Plastics evaluated the top 80 percent of
its customers, items and materials to identify target groups. The tools in EnterpriseIQ
allowed Nicolet Plastics to weed the garden (eliminate non-strategic variability) and
come up with a resulting mix that remains very complex, but more focused.
Following the initiative above, Nicolet Plastics addressed its wide variety of custom
resins and materials required to run jobs, specifically the challenge: How do you reduce
lead times when the material lead time may be longer than your total desired time for
the whole order? Using its new data about key materials from the step above, Nicolet
Plastics was able to designate house materials. Using EnterpriseIQs user-defined
fields and rich MRP reporting tools, Nicolet Plastics identified daily usage, appropriate
reorder points and established a purchasing plan to ensure sufficient stocks of key
house materials.
With staff, materials and batch size improvements addressed, Nicolet Plastics could
focus on scheduling. QRM requires dynamic and fluid adaptation at any minute, so
Nicolets master scheduler uses EnterpriseIQs rough-cut capacity planning tools and
robust scheduling engine (that takes into account complete materials, capacity and
labor requirements in a matter of minutes) to create the daily plan.
Nicolet also uses EnterpriseIQs auto-load feature that uses must-start dates to establish
a priority sequence for jobs. If a job has a must-start date in the next seven days, it is
authorized for work. This prevents stealing of necessary materials or labor from one
job for another that is not yet due. Combine this with just-in-time principals, and Nicolet
Plastics can easily see where there will be spikes and constraints to manage.
Despite the accurate schedule, Nicolet Plastics needed additional flexibility. So in
combination with the auto-loaded schedule, Nicolet Plastics uses EnterpriseIQs press
and labor capacity whiteboards to ensure they have spare capacity for flexibility. In
addition, Nicolet Plastics uses EnterpriseIQs Runs Best feature (an establishment of
which job runs best on which work center) to define which presses are capable and
qualified to run any item. This is also included on the schedule to offer operators the
flexibility to adjust as needed to prevent potential bottlenecks and flow resources where
needed.
Finally, Nicolet Plastics moved its focus from the production floor to the front office
to make sure that customer service was also done the QRM way. All support staff
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IQMS, the IQMS logo and EnterpriseIQ are registered trademarks of IQMS. All other company names are trademarks of their respective owners. The information herein is subject to change without notice. 2015 IQMS. All rights reserved.
www.iqms.com 1.866.367.3772 [emailprotected]
IQMS, the IQMS logo and EnterpriseIQ are registered trademarks of IQMS. All other company names are trademarks of their respective owners. The information herein is subject to change without notice. 2015 IQMS. All rights reserved.
that touched an order were organized into one team and cross-trained to improve
responsiveness to customers. Nicolet Plastics uses EnterpriseIQs Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) system to extensively track customer and order status. With the
ability to accurately check capable to promise, access external documents and initiate
workflows to facilitate communication, Nicolet Plastics employees can quickly and
easily assess what has transpired, the particular status of an order, etc., for accurate and
timely customer service.
Nicolet Plastics Hard Work Yields Impressive Results
Time is money in manufacturing. A quicker responsiveness to the customer gives them
not only what they want, when they want it, but at quantities that allow them to lower
inventories and improve cash flow. Despite the benefits of time-based competition and
make-to-order strategies, injection molding has been very slow to adopt a time-based
model.
QRM has clearly differentiated Nicolet Plastics from other molders. Nicolet Plastics has
added many clients because it has been able to develop partnerships based on the
value it delivers, not the price it charges. By saving its customers an invaluable week of
time in production, Nicolet Plastics clients can get projects to market faster and gain
market share ahead of the competition.
In addition to the new business, Nicolet Plastics has achieved:
Improved velocity: 2.3 times at the start of the project to an estimated velocity of
6.3 times. The financial resultsmargins, cash flow and revenue have all followed
A reduction of total finished goods inventory from a high of $500,000 to an average
of $200,000 (while doubling total sales)
Increased finished goods inventory turns from 11 to 25
Reduced lead time by seven days (halfway to goal)
Reduced time spent making scrap parts (scrap
hours) by 45 percent in the first year
An improved working capital position
(from lower inventory) has enabled debt pay
down
With QRM and EnterpriseIQ in place, the company
had its best year in history from an income standpoint.
Two years later the company again had its best year,
both in terms of revenue and earnings.
But the most impressive return on investment realized
by Nicolet Plastics is its earnings before interest,
taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
Time is money in
m a n u f a c t u r i n g
… Despite the
benefits of time-
based competition
and make-to-order
strategies, injection
molding has been
very slow to adopt a
time-based model.
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Nicolet Plastics EBITDA quadrupled over a three year period, exceeding EBITDA for the
preceding 10 years combined!
Nicolet Plastics significant and forward-focused achievements since the project began
have garnered attention throughout the manufacturing industry: Nicolet Plastics has been
honored with a Manufacturing Leadership (ML) 100 award for Operational Excellence,
was the recipient of the Workplace Excellence Award from the New North and was a
finalist in two categoriesWorkplace Development and Manufacturing Excellencefor
the Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year award. Despite these accomplishments, quick
response manufacturing is a journey, and Nicolet Plastics is happy to say that it is not
done yet!
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To: ADD names
From: ADD name
Date: ADD date
Subject: ADD title
Introduction
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Sed pellentesque sagittis diam, sit amet faucibus diam lobortis quis. Sed mattis turpis ligula, in accumsan ante pellentesque eu. Quisque ut nisl leo. Nullam ipsum odio, eleifend non orcinon, volutpat sollicitudin lacus.
Identify Changes
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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
Figure 1. Title (Lastname, 2)
Product Offerings
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Figure 2. Title (Surname, 3)
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Capabilities
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[Sample] Sources
1. First Last. 2020. Title of Source. http://research.strayer.edu/
2. Firstname Lastname. March 2019. Sample Source. https://strayer.libguides.com/strayerwritingstandards
3. Final Surname. 2018. Video Sources. http://strayer.libguides.com/sws-videos
Change the Chart Title to Fit Your Needs
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