1. Paper must be at least 7 pages/1250 words in length. This includes a cover page and a reference page.

2. Follow the APA format: http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx Feel free to use the provided APA template found in the “Professor Lloyd’s Resources” folder.

3. Your paper MUST include a minimum of 4 refrences

4. The purpose of this paper is to begin exploring how information systems are used to improve operational efficiency. This paper will include the following 5 sections addressing the initial phases of understanding the problem and how the organization’s environment will shape possible solutions.

Select an organization that you feel could benefit from an improvement in some area of its operations or delivery of its services (publicly traded companies are better as there is more information available).

Define the basic characteristics of the organization (size, industry, annual revenues and profit, competitors, and any relevant regulatory issues).

State the inefficiency/deficiency you seek to improve.

Characterize the problem in a quantifiable manner. This means that you should be able to describe the impairment in terms of production inefficiencies in units, number of customers served in each period, amount of revenue lost or unrealized etc.

Describe your proposed solution.

Your description should be in sufficient detail that the reader doesn’t have to ask, “how are you going to do that”.

For each portion of the proposed solution you should describe the changes to the organization and the existing process that will need to be made.

Describe each of the underlying technologies your proposed solution will require. As an example, if you were solving a supply chain issue and trying to speed up a receiving process, you may use bar code scanners and/or RIFD transmitters/receivers to more quickly ingress the received items into inventory. You would also need to discuss the technologies that would allow the data to be stored, retrieved, and the physical infrastructure and network elements that would allow this to happen.

Provide a conclusion that summarizes the previous 3 sections. The conclusion should recap the company, problem, and the proposed solution ending with a quantifiable benefit as the result of the proposed solution. This benefit should be in terms of not only production/service metrics, but also extrapolated into a revenue/profit increase. As an example, if your solution reduced supply receiving time by “X” percent, that percentage would be deducted from the total man hours needed in a shift/day. Those man hours multiplied by the prevailing rate for that labor would give you an hourly savings, which would then be multiplied by however many units of the selected time measurement occur in a year.