Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive Systems Integration (1992) / Chapter Skim
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2 Applications of Integrated Systems: Evolution in Concept and Practice
2 Applications of Integrated Systems: Evolution in Concept and Practice
Pages 16-40
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From page 16... ...
At snack food maker Frito-Lay, for example, the challenge was to develop an information system that helped the company leverage the advantages and efficiencies that accrue to its large size and yet enabled the national firm to maneuver flexibly in local markets, where it sells the 5 billion packages of snack food that generate annual revenue of $4.5 billion. The company's integrated system, widely used as an example of an effective corporate information system, links all parts of its operations.
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From page 17... ...
James Fischer, Managing Partner, Andersen Consulting "People building upon existing components to satisfy a customer's need." Robert L Martin, Vice President for Software Technology and Systems, Bell Communications Research "Effective integration implies a system-level architecture that permits the integration, or connection, of system components and permits later integration of unplanned components.
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From page 18... ...
In fact, current information on virtually every aspect of the snack food maker's operations manufacturing, purchasing, warehousing, distribution, marketing, sales, management, and research- is easily retrieved with the company's information system and presented in the level of detail desired. Widely cited as a model of an effective corporate information system, Frito-Lay's computer network has established itself as the company's most important strategic and competitive tool.
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From page 19... ...
Benefits have been realized in many forms. Electronic data entry by the sales force eliminated timeconsuming paperwork, saving between 30,000 and 50,000 hours each week.
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From page 20... ...
Exchanging information between these computing islands entailed laborious translation procedures or, worse yet, manual reentry of information. This state of affairs led to user demand for connectivity, a means to let unlike systems perform at least rudimentary tasks such as exchanging files.
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From page 21... ...
Moreover, information networking technology is so intricately related to the broader phenomenon of the growing interdependency among regional, national, and global economies that the importance of its role can only be expected to increase. DISTRIBUTED NETWORKED COMPUTING: EVOLUTION IN UNDERSTANDING The steady stream of complementing innovations in computer and communications technology provides the building blocks of systems integration projects.
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From page 22... ...
James Fischer, managing partner for technology services at Andersen Consulting. Whatever the gains inherent in this approach of assigning computing technology to its most obvious uses preparing payrolls, budgets, and inventories and performing other number-crunching tasks they were likely to be short-lived advantages because such applications are readily available to all competitors, he said.
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From page 23... ...
Increasingly, Teflian predicted, firms will regard their products as perishable products with limited shelf lives. Seizing short-lived marketing opportunities and optimizing pricing strategies will require timely capture of information at the point of sale and rapid response to changing market conditions.
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From page 24... ...
But look at the people, look at what those people have to do, and see what you can do to make them more productive." With this perspective on using information technology to make workers more effective, the purview of systems integration expands greatly. Into a domain largely devoted to solving detailed technical problems enter issues intricately related to cultural notions of work.
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From page 25... ...
But the watchdog agency found that "attempts to modernize the government's information systems have produced few successes and many costly failures."4 In addition, problems arise after information systems are up and running. Equipment problems, programming errors, and other disruptive events cause network failures, resulting in annual losses estimated to range from $600,000 to $3 million for firms with large systems.5 6 Moreover, unauthorized use of networks and other security abuses have resulted in large, but untabulated, losses of money and information.7 Acknowledging the difficulties and complexities that can undermine the aims of system integration, colloquium participants identified some of the key attributes of efforts to build effective information systems, as well as the essential features of those systems.
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From page 26... ...
For example, Jeffrey M Helter, senior vice president at Electronic Data Systems, described an effective systems integration project as one that fulfills a "practical objective through the assemblage of diverse component technologies and disciplines that are critical to each others' success." At a general level, this definition seems straightforward enough, but it can become exceedingly complex at the operational level of an individual organization.
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From page 27... ...
For UPS. firms to preserve and build on their commanding position in the emerging international market, Selin emphasized, they must execute a lesson already learned in the domestic market: To build effective integrated information systems, firms must be intimately familiar with the characteristics of the foreign industries and companies they are working with.
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From page 28... ...
Crawford, executive vice president for strategic business systems at American Express Travel Related Services, "a systems integration contractor must demonstrate relevant experience in multiple disciplines and in successfully managing extremely large, complex projects." However, finding people with the requisite mix of skills to achieve that level of performance is becoming increasingly difficult for the systems integration industry. Recognizing Essential Features of Information Systems System Architecture The rapid advance of computer and communications technology underlies an ever-changing set of user needs.
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From page 29... ...
Many organizations that are pioneering applications of information technology still bear the risk of being locked into proprietary systems that may restrict future options for connectivity and interoperability.8 For now, these organizations must choose from among competing platforms, hoping that their selections will become the nationally and internationally accepted and implemented standards. If a firm is large enough, it can try to dictate its architectural requirements to prospective suppliers, as American Express Travel Related Services has done in the area of communication components.
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From page 30... ...
Moreover, even the largest firms are discovering that, as the trend to internetworking and interenterprise cooperation proceeds, they can no longer entirely bypass public telecommunications carriers, an amalgam of international, national, regional, and local utilities, or the growing number of thirdparty suppliers of enhanced telecommunications and information services. This increases the number of interfaces and, therefore, potential bottlenecks that must be negotiated for internetworking applications, while increasing the vulnerability of a firm's communications and information system to security violations and technical failures.
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From page 31... ...
Rather than breeding the familiarity that fosters greater use and exploration of network applications, several participants noted, differences in user interfaces can cause considerable frustration and confusion, dissuading employees, for example, from using electronic mail features or entering information into a database on potential custom
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From page 32... ...
Such software often includes programming tools and prepackaged bits of programming code, or objects, that help users create new applications and databases by combining the components of existing ones. With significant advances over the next 10 to 15 years, suggested Weis of Sears, these programming aids may enable business professionals to "specify, in a nonprocedural way, the business functions that they want to perform and then turn those rules or nonprocedural statements into a system" that performs the desired applications.
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From page 33... ...
businesses. A major challenge, therefore, is what many in the systems integration industry call migration, a "forward-engineering" process that enables owners of information technology to preserve and build on their installed bases of hardware, software, and information.
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From page 34... ...
" asked Helter of Electronic Data Systems. The answer, according to other colloquium participants, is probably both, with the relative balance between asset or hindrance hinging on progress in developing methodologies for forward engineering and the reuse of software and databases (see section immediately below)
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From page 35... ...
Several panelists suggested that object-oriented techniques hold considerable promise in achieving interoperability among the functions within separate applications and in salvaging past programming work. CASE tools, in contrast, they observed, have yet to yield the promised productivity benefits.
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From page 36... ...
Many systems integration firms use formal methods for analyzing how firms use and communicate information internally and externally. On the basis of such analyses and close consultation with their clients, integrators develop an architectural plan for "defining technology requirements," said Helter of EDS, and for "blending .
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From page 37... ...
Two staff members in his division work full-time to advance American Express's positions on international telecommunications standards, and another small group of workers concentrate on regulatory and standards activities in the United States. Several colloquium participants suggested that the federal government could play an instrumental role in coordinating U.S.
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From page 38... ...
These firms have, in effect, built their own information infrastructure, an unaffordable option for most organizations that could benefit from high-speed internetworking capabilities. Thus most of the approximately 700,000 private networks in the United States are information outposts linked by the data-transmission equivalent of one-lane highways.~4 As discussed in the next chapter, the prospect of broadband Integrated Services Digital Network service, which initially would offer transmission rates of more than 150 million bits per second, is viewed as one potential remedy to this infrastructural deficiency.
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From page 39... ...
"Technical positions in a systems integration firm require technical aptitude, and many people undergoing training will not be successful," he explained. At the same time, the field is becoming more complex.
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From page 40... ...
T1 service transmits data at the rate of 1.5 million bits per second, sufficient for simultaneous transmission of voice communication and textual and numerical data; T3 service offers a transmission rate of about 45 million bits per second, which accommodates only rudimentary real-time graphics applications.
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