Information system development for order receiving process of a scaffolding and accessories manufacturer

Abstract

The business model of scaffolding and accessories manufacturer studied in this thesis, hereinafter referred as ABC’s company, is quite complicated as the majority of the products are to be rented – at approximately 80% of the time. The remaining 20% is where customers decide to purchase. This has resulted in the complexity of production process and inventory control. The production process is divided into two sectors – repairing products returned from renting customers and manufacturing of new products. In term of inventory, other than finished product inventory and work in process, there are 2 more inventories; waiting-for-repair items, and at-customer-location. This has resulted in many sets of information required for marketing department to process customers’ orders. Currently, marketing department is still lack of certain data to be analyzed and information system to support order receiving process which subsequently results in an ineffective and inefficient designated deliverable date, which eventually leads to lateness in delivery and job cancellation The purpose of this study is to develop the information system in order to improve order receiving process of ABC’s marketing department. Fist, the author studies current order receiving process and analyzes its problems. Then, the information system is designed for required data and logical model. In this thesis, the products covered in the thesis’ standard times of both production process sectors are studied to determine the process capacity which is one of the required data for the information system. Finally, the information system is developed by Visual Basic-based Excel Macro and evaluated for its validation. The information system is validated by ABC’s top managements and marketing department. As a result, it is accepted for its sufficient data and efficient logical model which are required in order receiving process in order to support marketing department in designating more accurate available-to-promise date and proactively negotiating with customers. Furthermore, the preliminary evaluation results in the improving trend of on time delivery, that is, reduction of 5% units late and reduction of 2% error available-to-promise date. In addition, top managements also accept for its validations and contributions for further improvements since standard time and production plan are provided as well.