COURSE CODE: BCO216-BCN16500 COURSE NAME: MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS Task brief & rubrics

INSTRUCTIONS
General Task:
The mid-term assessment consists of a few open questions and on schemes / flowcharts about Information Systems. Each student has to work individually on
his/her assessment. Starting from a brief case-study description every student has to imagine, describe and design a specific simplified Information System (CRM,
or SCM system) detailing and highlighting the different necessary data, dimensions, actors, business functions and processes involved as well as the corresponding
components (hardware and software) and managerial aspects.

Formalities:
- Delivery method: the assignment must be uploaded on the moodle platform through Turinitin in pdf format. All the answers and schemes have to be
included into a single unique pdf.
- Font size and type: For the text, use a font size 11 pts (Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman or any other professional and clear font).
- Questions: max 500 words for each question
- Schemes: each scheme may be created with any graphic (online or local) software such as illustrator, draw.io, miro.com or any other proper tool. Each
scheme can be briefly and concisely described by integrating what already written within the open questions 1 to 4.
- Appendix: original sketches drawn on paper can be added at the end of the assignment within the Appendix (please attach some clean and clear photo).

Information System Types:

- surname from A to L: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- surname from M to Z: Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Case Study:
- Name from A to L: Case study A
- Name from M to Z: Case study B

Submission Deadline: 20th November, before 00:00 CEST – Via Moodle (Turnitin).

Weight: This task is a 40% of your total grade for this subject.

Outcome: the mid-term assessment evaluates the understanding of the basic concepts (dimensions, aspects, components, relationships, business levels, actors)
related to information systems touched during the first units. In particular, two main outcomes will be evaluated:
 Outcome 1: basic understanding of the different aspects and the underlying complexity behind the design and implementation of an IS.
 Outcome 2: the ability to link the different aspects into a unique and whole picture and flowchart.
 CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION
CASE A: sustainable reusable packaging

Your company is finally successfully ending, after a one-year pilot project, the testing phase for a reusable container system for the food and beverage industry.
Your main products are reusable containers for take-away food and drinks that you distribute to every member (restaurants, bars, clubs, ...) affiliated to your
organization. Each container, or bottle, then is distributed directly by the bars and pubs, restaurants and clubs to the final consumers (when they buy something)
that pay a small deposit (from 1 to 3 euros) until the container is not returned back to one of the network affiliated venue.

During the pilot project, your organization collected several data related to the logistics, the movement of the reusable containers/bottles, specific feedback
both from the owners of the food and beverage activities and from the final consumers. A few main issues and challenges emerged from the first year pilot
project and, now, before to plan the scale-up phase for your product you need to design an efficient information system to manage properly your business.

In particular, from the pilot phase three main challenges emerged:

1) Logistics: the movement of the containers is unbalanced and uneven among the different members of the network. Certain restaurants at the end of the
week remain without containers while others end up with an accumulation of hundreds of containers.
2) Cleaning and Washing: not all the members of the network have proper washing machines and they are complaining of the work charge in order to
wash all the returned back containers. A temporary solution during the pilot phase was to include an external company in charge of the washing and
cleaning of the containers but this has not yet tested on a large scale. At the same time, many consumers complained about the lack of hygiene of the
containers received by the local distributors.
3) Broken containers: after few months, due to the intensive use, containers have started to break down resulting in consumers’ complaints that cannot
recover their deposit because of your quality policy.
4) Unexpected events: during the summer season, due to the large number of public events in different areas of Barcelona your organization was unable
to predict the sudden increase in demand resulting in a loss of sales and other consumers’ complaints due to the lack of containers.

For this case study, please refer to the following flowchart. Your organization (the Deposit Manager Organization) basically acts as a logistics organization for
reusable cups and containers in-between packaging producers, recyclers and retailers. The flowchart represents money and materials flows and corresponding
interactions among the different actors of the supply chain.
CASE B: participatory fashion upcycling

Your organization is testing a new business model to upcycle second-hand clothes and then redistribute them through an e-commerce and local retailers.
Basically, your business model consists in:

- collecting second-hand clothes directly from people through dozens of collection points spread all around the city of Barcelona
- transporting collected clothes towards a few centralized warehouses and consequently sorting the clothes by types, colors, quality and so on.
- Distributing the separated clothes to several local tailors, dressmakers and fashion designers who are in charge to create new clothes
- Selling the upcycled clothes through an ecommerce and local retailers (or temporary events)

Your company has grown rapidly during the first phase and now you need to manage it with an appropriate information system to deal with some problems you
have noticed:

1) Decrease in participation: after an initial growing phase, you notice that the number of clothes delivered to the collection points decreased. This can be
due to a saturation point as well as to the lack of a feedback system for customers that are not properly engaged in the process.
2) Sorting and distributing: During the sorting phase, it was noted that it is difficult to supply exactly the required clothes to the local tailors who will
recycle them. Moreover, in many cases, used clothes have to be supplemented with new fabrics that have to be delivered on time.
3) Selling: the ecommerce is working properly although several upcycled clothes remain for a long time in your warehouse, while local retailers exhibited a
difficulty to sell all your products because of consumers’ preferences.
 QUESTIONS

QUESTIONS (max 500 words for each question):

1. Please provide a general description of a hypothetical Information system highlighting main aims, functions, input/output, and required data.
2. Please detail the relationships with the different dimensions and involved actors (internal and external) of your IS.
3. Please explicitly describe the relationships with other IS types, the different business functions and hierarchical levels within the organization
4. Please describe how your information system may improve the management of the organization at all levels (operational, middle and top management)

SCHEME / FLOWCHART

5. Please provide a general scheme/flowchart of the designed IS (required input/output, other IS)
6. Please provide a second “overlapping” scheme with the business functions, hierarchical levels, external and internal stakeholders/actors
7. Please provide a third “overlapping” scheme highlighting the specific IT components (hardware and software).

Each scheme can be briefly and concisely described by integrating what already written within the open questions 1 to 4.