Management Information Systems - Research Paper Example

Management Information Systems: A Research Paper By Student Name Management Information Systems: A Research Paper Executive Summary. In September 30, 2001 Intel Corporation was driving for the E-Commerce / E-Manufacturing concepts. In line with that the company created a department to meet or handle the automation projects that needs to be done in order to achieve their goal. Systems Engineers were tasked to look at the current status of the manufacturing floor and see what processes or systems that can be automated to cut down on cost both manpower and other office materials such as bond papers in line with the paperless environment that the company is looking as well. Cost saving measures and eliminating manual processes is the Systems Engineers main tasked. They were headed by the Information Systems Manager which reports directly to the Manufacturing Plant Manager. In one of the inspections made on the production floor a number of processes and status that was observed that can be automated. It was also observed that for equipment’s under preventive maintenance can cause serious injuries if mishandled sine there are only manual tags in place and the machines can still operate. Electronic Downtime Book (EDB III) was created to address the issues in the manufacturing floor with regards to safety and maintenance scheduling. This system was created in line with the companies desire to achieve 100% safety and equipment production. Organizational Structure. The manufacturing plant is headed by the General Manager and for this production plant using this system is being headed by the Manager and he has 7 supervisors which are divided into 3 sections. Front end, Test and backend. Each supervisor handles 20 production operators which are tasked to run the equipments and move finished products to the next process and 5 technicians who are tasked to maintain production equipments up and running 24x7. The Managers task is to make sure that deliverables are on schedule and communicates with higher management on issues or needs of the production. Supervisors make sure that operators are meeting their target production and technicians are in line with their equipment maintenance. The IT Systems Engineering group is headed by the IT manager and makes sure that Systems Engineer are doing their job in making the production floor fully automated. Their main task is to minimize if not eliminate waste in the production floor. Systems Engineers should help the manufacturing in achieving a fully automated and paperless environment which helps save revenues for the company. The IT Systems Engineering group is headed by the IT manager and makes sure that Systems Engineer are doing their job in making the production floor fully automated. Their main task is to minimize if not eliminate waste in the production floor. Systems Engineers should help the manufacturing in achieving a fully automated and paperless environment which helps save revenues for the company. Organizational Usage and Impact. EDB is a suite of software products that collect equipment performance information. Simply forward that information into a central database and then provide reporting mechanisms to present system metrics such as MTBF, MTTR uptime, failure mode pareto, schedules and unscheduled downtime, PM and bagging status. EDB is a manual input tool used to track downtime for test and Backend equipment. Full descriptions of maintenance or repair events can be input into the tools as well. In addition, it can be used to track module as well as individual equipment indicators, scheduled and unscheduled downtime, machine PM and conversion activities. This tool would be used in the manufacturing floor as part of automating the process and at the same time helping operators with data gathering and status monitoring. This would also help management in planning out activities for the equipments to help maintain productivity. This has a general impact on productivity, cost savings in terms of paper consumed, timely reports which is related to management’s decision capability or planning. This would help manufacturing in ensuring safety and maintenance schedule adherence. The succeeding pages would explain further in detail how the tool is going to be used. This document would also show how much the organization would benefit from this tool. Looking at the semiconductor’s perspective, this tool would guarantee that operations would be running smoothly and all equipments would be in tip top condition. This is very helpful for semiconductors especially operations are on a 24x7 schedule with targets to meet daily, weekly and monthly. The next page would provide the reader some new perspective in using the tool and would understand its use and what semiconductors would benefit from using this tool. Hardware and Software. EDB Workstation Pentium based PC operating on Microsoft NT version 4.0 (service pack 3). SQL Server 6.5 installed on Windows NT version 4.0. Configured with Pentium CPU (>90 MHz) 32Mbyte RAM, 750+ Mbyte HDD, 3.5’ FDD, 2 serial ports, 1 parallel port, Keyboard, Mouse, SVGA monitor (minimum of 800x600x256 colors screen resolution) and a network card. Network The EDB requires connection to Ether express network for access to sql server where data is stored and extracted for reports purposes. Maintenance and Usage of the Software Microsoft Access Runtime Software is needed for EDB II application to run properly. From the drop down menu, there are altogether five different coverage sections, which are Main, Data Entry, Reports, Configuration and Help. Technicians would select the proper downtime or uptime by pulling down the menu. This would also give a report or status to the Equipment Engineers. The Engineers can monitor equipment status from anywhere. They can pull up reports anytime. Engineers would do if technicians are sticking to the schedule. Engineers would know how long the equipment was down. Engineers would know if Technicians are slacking. This tool is also used to convert equipments to suit the type of product it’s going to run. By merely pulling down the menu and selecting the type if it’s backend or test. This tool makes sure that schedules are met and the proper configuration or conversion was done properly. This tool would also give a status report as to the level of conversion it is currently in. It is a matter of selecting status on the control or screen to select the type of job that is to be done on the equipment. This program can also be used to track turn over from previous shifts to incoming line Engineers and technicians. It is so user friendly that operators and technicians would be using this program to give an updated status of the machine they are using. Line Engineers now have a tool that they can use to properly schedule Preventive maintenance or conversion that has report generation capability. Before Line Engineers need to get inside the manufacturing floor to schedule manually equipments for preventive maintenance or conversion. With the help of this tool Line Engineers can schedule equipments for preventive maintenance or conversion remotely. This tool is so robust and real time that line Engineers can get an update with a click of a button. They can monitor or keep track of the work done with their equipment to see if the schedule is met and the proper configuration is being done or was done. The line technician or operator can select the status of the equipment manually but the reports and status of the equipment is generated automatically. This tool also has direct control over the machine so that when it’s under preventive maintenance or conversion and the technician is below the machine doing work on it. No operator can get the machine online accidentally or manually without using this tool. This is another criteria or function which this tool provides. It prevents accidents to happen by operators who are not paying attention to their work. EDB is also working hand in hand with other manufacturing systems to help management in monitoring the health and status of each machine. The whole manufacturing floor was fully automated to help with cost cutting measures and eliminate or create a paperless environment. Printed documents alone were reduced to 95% and the enhancement of other tools would make the production floor paperless by next year. Recommendations. Further enhance the capabilities of the EDB and propagate the tool and monitor its usage. Proper training and documentation needs to be added in the procedures to eliminate mishandled process and accidents. This System would help Engineers in scheduling Uptime and Downtime of every equipment on the manufacturing floor. This system is also working in conjunction with other applications and can generate reports for proper planning and forecast. EDB (Electronic Downtime Book) would have a major impact on time management and production targets. It makes the job easier for Equipment Engineers in scheduling their equipments for either maintenance or conversion which wouldn’t have an impact to production targets. EDB also helped in making the production floor accident free. Since the tool was implemented no accidental uptime of equipments occurred unlike previous incidents when this tool was not yet available. This prompted Line Engineers to approach Systems Engineer and sought their help in making this tool a reality. Read More