Abstract

The project examines the application of information system in Cargotech Ltd. The introduction gives a brief description of the company current system and problem statement. The purpose of this project is to implement information system to an non information system organization and to see the advantage it contributes to the company. The study also evaluates the software chosen to help the company perform better and demonstrate how the business process of the company changes through the application of Information system.

Introduction

The Management Information System is an integrated,user machine system for providing information to support operations,management,analysis and decision making functions in an organisation.The system utilises computer hardware and software,manual procedures,models for analysis,planning,control and decisions. In order to be able to see any kind of change in a companys efficiency, we must get to how the organization is currently operating and how it will operate after implement information system in order to make comparisons. So let us take the example of a company named as Cargotech Ltd.

Business Scenario/ Description of Company.

Cargotech Ltd is a freight forwarder company which acts as an agent to help international trading and deals with a lot of local and foreign clients. It helps importers and exporters in transporting their goods. In other words, Cargotech Ltd acts as a facilitator. It is a departmental organization that has one branch at Port-Louis and one at Plaine-Magnien.It operates with an average of 80 staff members. The organization has different departments including the Accounts, Payroll, Marketing, Human Resource and Importexport department. The Accounts department deals with costs relating to finance the export of the goods and ensure that expense are minimized to allow profit of the company. The payroll department deals with preparation of employees salary and monitor the employees hours worked. T he staffs working in marketing department has the role to attract customers and ensure that a good service is being offered. The Human Resource department deals with the recruitment and selection of the appropriate candidates and the Import-Export department deals with all the transactions relating to the export of customers consignment and importing foreign customers goods to Mauritius.

Research problem

Currently at Cargotech the organization operates totally on its man power resource, however this has an impact on the daily operation of the organization when staffs are absent from work. At the accounts department a foremen has to walk to import-export department to take a file and another foreman at the import -export department must walk to account department to notify them about any costs and transaction incurred. This causes delay in the work process and when the foreman is absent , some files remain idle and supervisors has to do the work of foreman which result to an overloading of work to these staffs. Also there is much of paper work due to the fact that almost every transaction that occurred was being recorded on paper. This is indeed time-consuming and there is much use of paper along with a high degree of wastage due as there are higher risks to make errors. As it is, those errors led to misrepresentation and misinterpretation of the financial statements. Some staff members has to double check their work and this causes delay in the work.

Also there is deficiencies in the payroll department when work are done manually. At Cargotech staffs must signed in the attendance book when they arrived at work and as there is no control over payroll procedures some employees signed for hours not worked. There are different levels of Management at Cargotech. The Top Management, the Middle Management and the Operational Management.

Different management levels at Cargotech Ltd

We all know that an organization is traditionally viewed as a three level pyramid; operational activities at the bottom, management planning and control activities in the middle and strategic planning and policy- making in top management. Similarly at Cargotech Ltd we have the Managing Director and the Human Resource Manager (also acts as Payroll agent) at the top management of the company. Also there is the Sales (Exports) Department, the Imports, the Customs clearing and the Accounts Departments. Each Department consist of a supervisor and they are concerned with the tactical planning and control of the organization.Finally,the staff members being part of the operational level, must ensure that the daily activities are being properly done. The Top level Management who take Strategic decision of

the company has access to all types of information, whilst Supervisor do not get access to salary and operational level staffs are restricted to only a specific number of files and information.

Aim and vision Freight systems will constantly exceed customer expectations by providing innovative logistics solutions Mission

Freight systems as a logistics solutions provider is committed to:Delivering customized solutions Investing in technology and people Complying with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements Enhancing profitability Providing end-to-end supply chain services through an global network.

Why to implement Information System?

Due to the above discrepancies, the company took the initiative to implement Information System to be more efficient, rapid, to avoid wastage, to better communicate and to have competitive advantage over competitors. The company will adopt a Transaction Processing System that will serve the operational level of the organization by recording the daily transaction required to conduct business as the Human Resource and Sales department must operate every day. In order to implement a Transaction Processing System the organization must have to adopt a 3 tier architecture where there will be an application server between server and client to ensure security and prevent hacker.

The company will be using an Enterprise System as it will link all department together with the use of intranet. The enterprise system will automate the business processes such filling an order or scheduling a shipment with the goal of integrating information across the entire company and eliminating complex, expensive links between computer systems in different areas of the business. The enterprise system will help to reduce the paper work and will allow the work to be done despite staffs are absent and will be less time consuming.

Cargotech will also introduced the system of Finger Print to record the presence of staff members. The Finger Print System is an electronic device that records the exact time of movement of staff members. The device is programmed in such a way that each staff member is assigned a number and as soon as the person puts his finger on the machine, the time is recorded automatically. This will ensure that employees are only paid for hours worked. In order to operate the system the company will install a software known as SIGMA. Software description This software is specifically designed as per the departments that exist in the company. Sigma consists of static data and dynamic data and data about transactions that occur daily. Static Data means that at the creation of this software, some information have already been input by the software designer and that information will never change. On the other hand, we have dynamic data, which implies that certain information exist but they can be changed whenever the need arises or when something new has to be created. Sigma Panel has 4 modules namely: Freight, Debtors, Creditors and Accounting.

Hardware In order to implement the information systems the company must buy the appropriate equipment such as personal computers for every staffs, installation of air conditioner, fingerprint machine, internet server and printer.

The Different Processes with the use of sigma

The imports and exports department are concerned only with the Freight module where they record and implement data about their flights, vessels,shippling lines or airlines and for each new transaction that occur the need to create a file in which all their information will be recorded.

The accounting department makes use of all the 4 modules that exist in sigma. The Debtors module has information recorded about the credit customers that owe Cargotech ltd while the Creditors module contains information about the suppliers that offer their goods and services to the company.

The accounts Dept also uses the Freight module as the information about the debtors and creditors are combined in Freight and this allows the accounts dept to monitor the files in any Import-export or Custom Clearing Dept of whether they are making profits or losses. Finally comes the Accounting module which contains aggregated information of all the departments, of their costs and invoices.

Level of security of using the software

Sigma is such a software that someone cannot make wrong use of as each user has their own password and all the staff members do not have access to every function of sigma. In this way, there is much security for the data stored. The Accounting Module In sigma makes the accountants work easier to prepare the final accounts at the end of each month as the information is readily available. From these final accounts, the statistics help the management to plan, control and make decisions.

IT Architecture and Infrastructure

The IT Department at Cargotech Ltd is well-equipped with all the essential tools required for any software maintenance or for any kind of technical problem. The IT administrators have the responsibility to make necessary arrangements for toners, printers, fax-machines and even new computer systems if required from the best suppliers . Also to avoid company data to be lost, The IT department ensure to do back-up of all the files. This is also very helpful as we cannot rely fully on the computer systems.

More Innovations at Cargotech Ltd

As Cargotech Ltd deals with international companies as well, the company makes use of Internet banking so as to ease the daily transactions about bank account transfers or to effect any kind of payments abroad or to receive funds from overseas. These transactions are made by telegraphic transfers and it is very rapid and prompt. Moreover, the IT Dept has introduced the use of Skype at work. This tool helps to communicate effectively internally and as well as with the different clients. This brings about efficiency and much cost is saved on the telephone bills.

Competitive Advantage In order to help the organization to gain a competitive advantage over competitors Cargotech will constantly innovate applications that will have direct strategic advantage to the organization. Information systems will help to minimized costs and ensure better relationship with customers through customer relationship systems. This system help to stored customers previous sales and are allowed special priviledges on next purchase. It also help to identify profitable customers, acquire new customers and target product products and services that are more demanded by customers.

Critical Analysis

From the above we can analyse how has Information technology brought about efficiency and competitiveness at the business level. Almost every work is done with perfection with the help of Information Technology but we cannot deny that everything is not perfect. Certain drawbacks do exist. For instance, the software Sigma used at Cargotech Ltd might become slow when too many transactions are being processed at the same time. Some information might not be saved. This affects the pace of work of the staff members and the work gets delayed. However with the co-operation of the IT dept, everything goes on smoothly and in case

there is any kind of technical help, they are always here to solve the problem. The field of communication and technology has much more to discover and might introduce new creative and innovative appliances that we have not even imagined. Moreover implementing Information systems is very expensive especially the Transaction processing system, the software sigma and the fingerprint machine. The staffs must be trained in order to operate the system this represent an additional costs. There are other costs such as installation of air conditioner, hardware internet and IT administrators staffs salary.

Conclusion It can be seen that information systems despite being expensive to implement, it helps organization to ensure a smooth daily operation and is being adopted in every organization nowadays.

References:http//www.palaushipping .com

Laudon&laudon Management information system (prentice hall) Introduction to information systems by Irwin Lecture notes by Mr Pascal Boncoeur.