Week 9:  Operations Management and Supply Chain

1) Define the term operations management 
Operations management is the management of systems or processes that converts or transforms resources into goods and services. 

2) Explain operations management’s role in business 
answers.com states that the roles of operations management is to co-ordinate the activities of all the factors of production namely; labour, land, capital, technology and equipments.

3) Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology
Managers use IT to heavily influence OM decisions, including
- What: What resources will be needed and in what amounts?
- When: when should work be scheduled?- Where: where will the work be performed?- How: How will the work be done?
- Who: who will perform the work?

4) Explain supply chain management and its role in a business 
Supply chain; a network of organisations and facilities that transforms raw materials into the products that are delivered to customers. 

This video may be helpful to understand Supply Chain Management.

5) List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain 

6) Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain. 
All data is related to demand, shipments, orders, returns and schedules as well as changes in any of these data. I.T's primary role is to create integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions within an organisation. Integrated Systems provide companies with greater visibility over the supply chain inventory levels. Technology advances and significantly improves companies' forecasting and business operations. 

Week 8: Databases and Data Warehouses

1) List, describe and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information

- Accuracy: are all values correct? For example, is the name spelt correctly? is the dollar amount recorded properly?

- Completeness: are any of the values missing? For example, is the address complete including street, city, state and postcode?

- Consistency: Is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed information? For example, do all total fields equal the true total of the individual fields?

- Uniqueness: Is each transaction, entity and event represented only once in the information? For example, do all the total fields equal the true total of the individual fields?

- Timeliness: Is the information current with respect to the business requirements? For example, is information updated weekly, daily, or hourly?

2) Define the relationship between a database and a database management system.

A database in an organised collection of data. A database management system is a group of programs that manipulate the database. It provides an interface between the database and its users and other application programs.

3) Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.

A Database is the heart of an organisation, it stores key business information such as:

- Sales data; customers, sales, contacts

- Inventory data; orders, stock, delivery

- Student data; names, address, grades

4) Describe the fundamental concepts of the relational database model.

A relational database is a type of database that stores information in the form of logically  related two-dimensional tables each consisting of rows and columns. This allows data to be accessed in many different ways without having to reorganise the database tables.

5) Describe the benefits of a data-driven website

Data-driven websites are an interactive website kept constantly updated and relevant to the needs of its customers through the use of a database. These advantages include:

- Development

- Content management

- Future expandability

- Minimising human error 

- Cutting production and update costs

- More efficient

- Improved stability

- Real time info like stock levels and price changes

6) Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organisation.

A data warehouse is the logical collection of information, gathered from many different operational databases, that supports business analysis activities and decision-making tasks. The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to aggregate information throughout an organisation into a single repository for decision-making purposes.