McCain Foods’ Success Factors: Dashboards, Innovation, and

Ethics

1. All it takes is one compromised ingredient to contaminate food and to put human lives at risk.
Delays in communicating contaminated food increase the health risk and fines for violating the
Food Safety Modernization Act. How can the SCM system help McCain Foods reduce the risks
related to low quality or contaminated frozen foods reaching consumers?

By being able to trace all ingredients along their supply chain, McCain Foods SCM system is used to
keep workers informed of actual and potential problems with food quality, inventory, and shipping as
they occur. McCain’s SCM system ensures delivery of the best products possible at the best value to
customers, reducing, even if not eliminating, such risks.

2. What are three challenges or threats facing McCain Foods and what is the reason for each
challenge or threat?

Drop in demand for frozen foods. McCain operated in an industry that was facing tougher
competition. Health-conscious trends were shifting customer demand toward fresh food, which was
slowing growth in the frozen foods market.

Perishable inventory. Of all the types of manufacturing, food manufacturers face unique inventory
management challenges and regulatory requirements. Their inventory of raw materials and finished
goods can spoil, losing all their value, or food can become contaminated. Regulators require food
manufacturers to able to do recalls quickly and effectively. Food recalls have destroyed brands and
been financially devastating.

Technology-dependent. Food manufacturers face the pressures that are common to all
manufacturers. They need information reporting systems and digital devices to manage and
automate operations, track inventory, keep the right people informed, support decisions, and
collaborate with business partners.

3. How have dashboards on the factory floor impacted performance at McCain Foods?

Dashboards have created healthy competition that has led to better performance. Ten-foot
dashboards hang on factory walls of plants around the world. They are strategically placed near the
cafeteria so employees can see the KPIs and performance metrics of every plant. The competition
among factories has totally transformed the work environment—and organizational culture—in the
plants and increased production performance.

4. What might be the KPIs of a frozen food manufacturer such as McCain Foods?

Answers may vary.

This study source was downloaded by 100000799312783 from CourseHero.com on 03-24-2022 09:26:42 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/40936637/Solutions-for-Case-studiesdocx/
 Some answers may be: Sales (total, direct, channel), number of recalls year to date, perished
inventory (or non-perished)

5. Explain how visibility about operations and performance created healthy competition among
McCain’s factory workers.

Visibility of KPIs and performance metrics of every plant allowed for everyone to know in near real
time exactly how well they are doing compared to other plants. This created a healthy sense of
competition between plants, as they each could see their performance compare to that of the
others.

6. Being able to make reliable predictions can improve business performance. Explain why.

Reliable predictions allow businesses to better decisions, anticipate business needs, prepare for
upcoming changes in the market (especially seasonal markets), and control their production
variables, including costs, more closely. Therefore, by having reliable predictions, businesses can
optimize their performance and ultimately their profit.

Case 2 – Business Case: Data Chaos Creates Risk

1. What might happen when each line of business, division, and department develops its own IT
apps?

When each line of a business develops its own IT applications, it often is done without a thorough
analysis of its relationship with other departmental or divisional systems. This arrangement may lead
to the business having IT groups which specifically manage a particular type of application suite or
data silo for a particular department or division.

2. What are the consequences of poorly managed apps?

When apps are not well managed, they can generate terabytes of irrelevant data, causing the
business to drown in such data. This data chaos could lead to errors. In an effort to manage excessive
and massive amounts of data, there is increased risk of relevant information being lost (missing) or
inaccurate — that is, faulty or dirty data. Another risk is a data breach.

3. What two risks are posed by data chaos? Explain why.

One risk is faulty, or dirty, data. Because apps are not well managed they can generate terabytes of
irrelevant data, causing a business to drown in such data. With excessive and massive amounts of
data, there is increased risk of relevant information being lost (missing) or inaccurate.

Another risk is data breaches. With large amounts of data spread over various data silos, the security
for each not well managed, the opportunities for data breeches are increased.

4. What are the functions of data governance in the healthcare sector?

This study source was downloaded by 100000799312783 from CourseHero.com on 03-24-2022 09:26:42 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/40936637/Solutions-for-Case-studiesdocx/
 Answers may vary.

The healthcare industry must comply with regulations or reporting requirements, defend against
fraud, and protect patients’ information.

Data governance in healthcare helps to reduce or eliminate faulty data and data chaos. Inaccessible
or unavailable in separate clinical data silos and valuable “messy” data are routinely left out. Most
health-care organizations are drowning in data, yet they cannot get reliable, actionable insights from
these data.

Good data governance helps to prevent data breaches.

5. Why is it important to have executives involved in data governance projects?

Data governance is the control of enterprise data through formal policies and procedures. Data
governance is an enterprise-wide project because data cross boundaries and are used by people
throughout the enterprise. Proper governance reduces risks for the organization.

Executives must be involved in order to determine who owns which data and who can access and/or
update that data, particularly data which crosses departmental boundaries. Also, to obtain
compliance to data policies and procedures, there must be support from executives who have
oversight across the organization.

6. List and explain the costs of data failure.

Costs of data failure include:

Rework - if data are incorrect, someone has to go to the original source and re-enter the correct data;
loss of business: not having correct data for customers, prospective customers, services, or products
can cause an inability to be customer-centric and therefore cause a loss of business;
safety errors (for patients, in healthcare; for the public, in engineering);
malpractice lawsuits (in various fields, such as healthcare, legal, or engineering);
and a delay in receiving payments: when billing or payment data are not available, or inaccurate,
delays can occur before correct payment is received.

7. Calculate the CIDDA over time:

Q1: G = 40%, M = 50%, TS = 20%

CIDDA = G x M x TS = 40% x 50% x 20% = 4%

Q2: G = 50%, M = 55%, TS = 30%

CIDDA = G x M x TS = 50% x 55% x 30% = 8.25%

Q3: G = 60%, M = 60%, TS = 40%

CIDDA = G x M x TS = 60% x 60% x 40% = 14.4%

This study source was downloaded by 100000799312783 from CourseHero.com on 03-24-2022 09:26:42 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/40936637/Solutions-for-Case-studiesdocx/
 Q4: G = 60%, M = 70%, TS = 45%

CIDDA = G x M x TS = 60% x 70% x 45% = 18.9%

8. Why are data the most valuable asset in health care?

Answers may vary.

Due to health-care accountability and reporting obligations, and the huge amount of personal data
in electronic form, data becomes very valuable in healthcare, not only for serving the patients’ needs,
but also for keeping the organization operational and protected from lawsuits.

“Beginning in 2012, hospitals have been penalized for high re-admission rates with cuts to the
payments they receive from the government (Miliard, 2011).” Managers need to be able to “access
an integrated view of relevant clinical and operational information to drive more informed decision
making. For example, by predicting which patients might be readmitted, we can reduce costly and
preventable readmissions, decrease mortality rates, and ultimately improve the quality of life for our
patients” (Miliard, 2011).

IT at Work 2.1 Data Quality Determines Systems Success and

Failure
1. Why was an EIS designed and implemented?

The EIS was designed to provide senior managers with internal and external data and key
performance indicators (KPIs) that were relevant to their specific needs.

2. What problems did executives have with the EIS?

The executives found that half of the data generated from their EIS was irrelevant to corporate-level
decision making concerning their Strategic Business Units (SBU) and that some of relevant timely
data, crucial for decision making, was not available when and how they wanted them.

3. What were the two reasons for those EIS problems?

The application architecture was not designed for customized report generation. In the EIS system,
the SBUs were reporting sales and revenue at different timeframes.

In addition, the user interfaces were too complicated to get to the required information; so much so,
that the analysts had to first extract KPI-related data and then work on them for producing the
information required by the executives.

4. How did the CIO improve the EIS?

The CIO put in place a dedicated team to design and develop a new system with a business-driven
architecture instead of a financial reporting-driven architecture. The new system used standardized
data formatting across the company, thus eliminating data inconsistencies.

This study source was downloaded by 100000799312783 from CourseHero.com on 03-24-2022 09:26:42 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/40936637/Solutions-for-Case-studiesdocx/
 5. What are the benefits of the new IT architecture?

The new system provided reliable KPI reports on inventory turns, cycle times, and profit margins of all
SBUs. It was easy to modify reports, eliminating ad hoc analyses. There was a reduction in resources
required for maintaining the system. EIS use by executives improved due to relatively reliable
underlying data in the system.

6. What are the benefits of data governance?

Data formats are standardized, data inconsistencies eliminated, and therefore high-quality data that
employees and business partners can trust and access on demand is provided. Improved data quality
can bring benefits such as accurate sales forecasting and order processing, increased sales growth, a
better customer experience, and greater customer loyalty and retention.

CASE 2 BUSINESS CASE: Financial Intelligence Fights Fraud

1. Explain FinCEN’s mission and responsibilities.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is a bureau of the Treasury Department and the
financial intelligence unit of the United States. Its mission is to safeguard the financial system from
abuses of financial crimes, to institute anti-money laundering programs, and to promote national
security through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence.

2. What data and IT problems were limiting FinCEN’s ability to fight financial crime?

Data that financial institutions had to report to FinCEN suffered from inconsistent quality and lack of
validation and standardization. When trying to analyze its data, FinCEN was limited to small datasets
and simple routines. The bureau could not conduct analysis across massive datasets and lacked
capabilities for proactive analysis and trend prediction. Reporting data to agencies was done using
numerous offline systems. These combined made to it difficult for FinCEN to quickly detect new and
emerging threats and aid in disrupting criminal enterprises.

3. Describe the IT upgrades and capabilities needed by FinCEN in order to achieve its mission.

FinCEN upgraded its analytics capabilities, IT infrastructure, and databases. Upgraded analytics were
needed to better collect and analyze data from multiple sources and provide them to federal, state,
and local law enforcement and regulatory authorities. FinCEN analysts now have improved analytic
and examination capabilities. Databases were upgraded, converting 11 years of data from its legacy
system to FinCEN’s new System of Record. With upgraded IT infrastructure, FinCEN is able to
electronically receive, process, and store all FinCEN reports. FinCEN released the FinCEN Query Web-
based app, a new search tool accessed by FinCEN analysts, law enforcement, intelligence, and
regulatory users providing real-time access to over 11 years of Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) data.

4. On what does financial intelligence depend?

Financial intelligence depends upon effective data analytics to identify patterns and relationships
that reveal potential illicit activity.

This study source was downloaded by 100000799312783 from CourseHero.com on 03-24-2022 09:26:42 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/40936637/Solutions-for-Case-studiesdocx/
 5. Why is the ability to identify patterns and relationships critical to national security?

This intelligence has increased the speed and ability to detect money launderers and terrorist
financiers and disrupt their criminal activity.

6. Research recent financial crimes that FinCEN has detected and disrupted. Explain the role of
data analytics in crime detection.

Answers will vary.

IT at Work 5.1 Black – the Self-Destructing Smartphone

1. Why do you think government-issued smartphones are a target for data theft and transmission
theft?

Answers may vary.

Answers likely will include issues of spying, government secrets (e.g., as in diplomacy), and defense.

2. What security precautions is Boeing taking with respect to the manufacture and sale of Black?

Black is manufactured in the United States, where higher security can be maintained. Few details
about the wireless network operators or manufacturer have been released. Sales are intended for
government agencies and contractors who need secure data and communications. If tampered with,
the phone self-destructs.

3. What security features are built into Black?

Advanced features for cybersecurity in Black include:

• Encryption to store sensitive information securely

• Hardware root of trust to ensure software authenticity

• Hardware crypto engine to protect both stored and transmitted data

• Embedded secure components to enable trusted operations

• Trusted platform modules to provide secure key storage

• Secure boot to maintain device image integrity

Black is manufactured as a sealed device, with both epoxy around the casing and screws with
tamper-proof covering. The phone encrypts voice and data communication and, if tampered with,
self-destructs. For instance, any attempt to open the Black’s casing deletes all data and software on
the device and leaves it inoperable.

This study source was downloaded by 100000799312783 from CourseHero.com on 03-24-2022 09:26:42 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/40936637/Solutions-for-Case-studiesdocx/
 Black uses the defense-in-depth model which ensures that if one layer of security is compromised,
other layers will continue to secure the device, its data, and transmissions. Multilayered defense-in-
depth models are absolutely necessary for a secure device.

Although not directly mentioned in the text, astute students may note that defense-in-depth is a
layering tactic, which should not only prevent security breaches, but also buy an organization time to
detect and respond to an attack, reducing or mitigating consequences of a breach.

4. Why is voice encryption an important digital security measure?

Answers may vary. Information may come in voice form as well as data. Both are digital and can be
hacked. Therefore, protecting voice communication with encryption is an important digital security
measure, just as protecting data is.

5. Why is a defense-in-depth model vital to a security smartphone such as Black?

Smartphones are mobile and used for a variety of tasks (calls, texts, emails, etc.) which may open
multiple paths for a security breach. Black uses the defense-in-depth model to ensure that if one
layer of security is compromised, other layers will continue to secure the device, its data, and
transmissions.

This study source was downloaded by 100000799312783 from CourseHero.com on 03-24-2022 09:26:42 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/40936637/Solutions-for-Case-studiesdocx/
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)