Center for Supply Management Research
Documentation
MIS 300
November 30, 2013
By: Becca Muick
Table of Contents
Executive Summary......................................................................................................................... 3
Section One: Overview................................................................................................................... 4
Organization Description............................................................................................................. 4
Project Description ...................................................................................................................... 5
Section Two: Performance Planning .............................................................................................. 6
Key Performance Indicators ........................................................................................................ 6
Project Plan ................................................................................................................................. 7
Gantt Timeline of Project ........................................................................................................ 7
Feasibility ................................................................................................................................. 7
Section Three: Notation ................................................................................................................. 9
Interview Notes ........................................................................................................................... 9
Artifacts ..................................................................................................................................... 16
Section Four: Processes ............................................................................................................... 20
Use Cases ................................................................................................................................... 20
Data Flow Diagrams .................................................................................................................. 22
Section Five: Recommendations................................................................................................... 32
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Executive Summary
The Center for Supply Management Research (CSMR) is a center of excellence
established to help faculty, business, and students in the Operations and Supply Chain
Management program at Indiana State University connect and grow. It will be a repository for
knowledge and research about topics relating to operations and supply chains, and will hold
events to extend that knowledge to others and bring members together for networking and
potential job opportunities.
I worked together with Dr. Kuntal Bhattacharyya to plan and design the website for the
Center. This report describes our work and its results. I assisted Dr. Bhattacharyya in the
development of what the website would require in terms of content pages, aesthetics, and
usability. We referenced other Centers of Excellence from other universities to get us started,
and built our plan from there. After deciding on the content we desired for the website, we
began to design the visual layout of the pages. Our finalized designs can be seen in the attached
Excel file.
The success of the Center will be measured in volume of membership, and amount of
usage by students, business partners, and faculty. Once the Center is up and running, it will host
events to bring all types of members together, and attendance will be another indicator of
whether the Center is achieving its mission.
Regarding the feasibility of the website’s development, there were no foreseen issues
with technical and economic feasibility. The website will be hosted through Indiana State
University’s servers, and graduate students are putting together the website. If more
manpower is required, the university has ample talent in its classrooms that could take on the
project. Economically there are no problems as well, as a grant was awarded to Dr.
Bhattacharyya to establish the Center. The only issue is with operational feasibility, as getting
students and businesses to use the site will be the biggest obstacle.
Going forward from this point, the highest priority is to get the CSMR website up and
running. Extensive testing should be done to ensure all aspects of the website are working as
desired. After the website is operational, the main priority should be to find someone with the
skills to manage the website adequately. Such management would include fixing the website’s
errors, assisting with user questions about the website, and potentially updating the
information displayed on the website. Depending on time and work schedules, it may be more
feasible for another person to be in charge of updating the website. To increase awareness for
the center online, connecting with other pages and areas of the Indiana State University
website could increase visibility among students. There is also the potential of creating a
presence on social media sites, but research should be done on the success of similar programs
in doing so before any accounts should be created on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or
LinkedIn.
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Section One:
Overview
Organization Description
The Center for Supply Management Research (CSMR) is a center of excellence established to
help facilitate connections between business students studying operations and supply chain
management, faculty, and businesses. The Center will work out of the Scott College of Business
at Indiana State University and heavily tie into the Marketing and Operations department,
specifically with the Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM) program.
At present, the Center consists of its director, Dr. Kuntal Bhattacharyya, affiliate faculty in the
College of Business including Dr. Paul Schikora, Dr. Constance McLaren, Dr. Concetta DePaolo,
Dr. Sandeep Bhowmick, Dr. Aruna Chandrasekarn, and Dr. Jeff Harper. In addition, an advisory
board including the Dean of the College of Business, Dr. Brien Smith, and representatives from
the Center’s business partners. Beyond these two groups of professionals, the Center will
accept students pursuing a major or minor in ISU’s OCSM major to register for its services to
allow them to connect with partnered businesses.
Dr. Kuntal Bhattacharyya is the director of CSMR, and is in charge of its planning and execution.
Using networks established by previous faculty as well as reaching out to new businesses, he is
building a new network of business partners that will utilize and help the Center grow. The
Center’s goal is to allow these business partners to collaborate with each other through the
Center, and to connect with and recruit students with interests in their fields.
Affiliate faculty can use the Center to publish their current in-progress research as well as
showcase publications of their completed research. They are also available to be contracted by
business partners for consulting.
Students can use the Center to present their resume to its business partners, as well as gain
access to faculty research, professional resources to further their skills with operations and
supply chain management, and learn about events the Center plans to sponsor or promote.
5
Project Description
As the Center has just been recently established, there are many things that must be put in
place before it is completely operational. As of this writing, no information systems exist for the
Center, but this project was undertaken to lay the groundwork for creating an information
system. I, Becca Muick, was taken onto the project to assist Dr. Bhattacharyya in developing a
design for the CSMR website. The website will be the front-end portal for each type of user into
the Center’s resources.
By blending together the visions Dr. Bhattacharyya has for the Center and what other
universities have done in terms of centers of excellence, we put together a framework of what
needed to be included in the Center’s website. During the course of the project, I assisted in the
creation of layouts and web page designs, and analyzing the connection user entities would
have with the various pages. These actions culminated in the compilation of a requirements
document that detailed to a graduate web design class in the College of Arts and Sciences how
to build the CSMR web site. This documentation was delivered to them on October 21 st, 2013.
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Section Two:
Performance Planning
Key Performance Indicators
The Center for Supply Management research is a not-for-profit center of excellent designed to
help students, faculty, and business connect with each other for everyone’s mutual growth and
learning. It is, in the director Dr. Kuntal Bhattacharyya’s words, “committed to the research and
dissemination of the critical mass of knowledge, tools, paradigms, and models in Global Supply
Management.”
To measure effectiveness with students, the number of student members of the center will be a
large indicator on whether or not the Center is being utilized. The amount of student members
that upload their resume to be viewed by the Center’s business partners is also something to
track.
For faculty, their in-progress research will be available for download from the Center, and there
will be functionality in the website that will ask for information about a user wishing to
download their research. This would notify the professor that someone is interested in their
research, and opens up possibilities for collaboration and discussion. It would also be a record
of how many users are accessing the research.
Another large measure of success will be the amount of business partners the Center is able to
connect with, and their utilization of reaching out to professors for consulting or viewing
students available for jobs. Following up on businesses contacting students through the Center
and hiring them for jobs within the business would be a way to measure how the degree the
Center helps facilitate these interactions.
The role of information systems in the Center will largely deal with the website, as it will hold all
the information the Center has to offer. There will be databases housing user information, as
well as event archives and faculty research. Projects between students and businesses will also
be stored, and thus information systems will be necessary to handle all the data that Center
contains. It is through the website that the Center will be able to reach out to potential
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students, as well as promote itself to other businesses who may wish to participate. CSMR will
be quite reliant on its information systems.
Project Plan
Gantt Timeline of Project
Feasibility
In terms of technical feasibility in constructing the CSMR website, there are ample development
tools and personnel available on campus. Putting together the website should not be a
problem. It will also be hosted on Indiana State University’s servers alongside the university’s
own website. There are no foreseen difficulties regarding storing the website’s data, creating
the website, or its hosting.
Economically, the Center of Supply Management Research was given a grant to be used to get
the Center and website up and running. There is enough money in the grant to cover the
expenses for the project.
The only potential area of slight concern is in operational feasibility. Once the website is live,
enlightening students to its existence will be the hardest task. This will be overcome via
planned events and promoting the Center in appropriate classes with the target students
present. Maintaining relationships with the Center’s business partners in order to keep them
8
engaged with the Center will be the second biggest hurdle for the Center, but this should not be
a problem as long as correspondence between the business partners and Center administration
continue.
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Section Three:
Notation
Interview Notes
During the course of this project I was mainly engaged with Dr. Bhattacharyya. We met each
week from September 17th to October 18th every Tuesday and Thursday at 5pm in Federal Hall.
We kept a running document with notes and deadlines of tasks we needed to accomplish. The
contents of that document are displayed in the following text.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013





Website registration and hosting:
http://faculty.indstate.edu/bhattacharyya/csmr
Contract sign-off
Becca’s thoughts from reading the documen
Creating a timeline
Create overview snapshots of web-pages
Involve and meet with OSCM faculty for their “blessings” and “input”
Write detailed content and requirements

What does a typical Center of Excellence entail? How will we model ours?
http://scmr.uark.edu/default.asp
http://www.business.rutgers.edu/cscm
Supplier Delivery Performance (proposed thrust for CSMR’s first conference)

Goal: CSMR to partner with other school centers
o
Partnership Alliance

Service - Educating high school students on careers in supply chain management

Timeline:
o
9/19 - 9/26

o
o
overview and snapshots
10/1 - 10/8

set up meeting with the OSCM faculty (hour or more meeting[s])

gather OCSM faculty input
10/3 - 10/10
10

o
10/10-10/17


build content
put together requirements for web development students
For Thursday:
o
Logo & catchphrase (ISU’s is “More from day one.”
o
Figure out wanted Links for website
Thursday September 19, 2013

Potential catchphrase for center: “Together we grow.”

Links (see PDF ‘Design_Roughwork’)
o
o
Home page

what is CSMR

objective/mission

OSCM quick facts
About Us

Letter from the Director (Dr. B)

Affiliate Faculty (Becca, create basic layout)

o
*Advisory Board (Dr. B)

o
o
includes Dean, Chair of MO, Senior Mgt. Officials from all Business Partners
Membership and Benefits (Dr. B)

o
each faculty member will have a clickable thumbnail with their
picture, name, designation, department, room number, email, link to
CV, link to their faculty page (table set up, see notebook)
Join Now
Students [all pages should have a link to “Join Now”

APICS

Projects

Professional Certifications
Research
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o
o

Projects * need to be divided by interest area

Faculty Publications

White Papers
”Business Partners” (“Industry”/”Businesses”)

“list of partners” → Our Network (Dr. B)

“past collaborations” (includes student-industry past projects) → Student
Led Projects

Browse Students
Events

calendar


will include APICS events & events for everyone

upcoming events

Open House (coming soon)

Annual Supply Management Colloquium (coming soon)

Invited Talks → “Speaker Series”

APICS events

“Resume Review”

Past Events
o
“Social Outreach”
o
Testimonials
o
Contact Us [inside navigation bar]
o
connect to OSCM program (major & minor) [linked on home page]
Expansion on ideas:
o
Student functionality

free membership through APICS (must be APICS member to sign-up as
student for free)

potential scenario: enter APICS membership number upon sign-up
for center
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
membership allows: posting of resume and the like for industry practitioners

o

during sign-up, will be forced to choose at least one work interest
(marketing, forecasting, etc.)

sign-up information: (practitioners can search for students by any of the
following)


first name

last name

sycamore login id

expected grade date

work interest (at least one)
faculty functionality:


→ will need a page on the site for them to view student resumes!!
membership allows for industry practitioners to search via faculty research
interests for consulting opportunities; works like student work interest
Issues & Topics:
o
Will the Home page contain information that an About Us page would? Do we want
it to? How will we differentiate the Home Page information and an About Us page?
o
Inclusion of testimonials
o
basic vs. membership site functionality and visual
Hot button topics for next time:
o
Home page content - what will and will not be there?
o
find better terms for “past collaborations”, “list of partners”, and possible “industry”
label
To dos for Today (September 26):
Home Page layout: Complete the definition of links
Logo?
- Dr. B: think about chain tie-in or motion/arrow motif
For each link, confirm the sub-links that go with it (APICS leadership has already been given the
responsibility to fill-up content for the APICS page)
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Put the student signup sheet together (Dr. B)
Homework for weekend: create the database and search criteria (Dr. B)
Page layouts for the others (Becca)
Thurs Oct 03
October 21 – meet with web develop group (Monday)
st
Oct 18 – Dr. B’s content deadline
th
APICS page and Affiliate Faculty - Becca
Participating Faculty:
Dr. Schikora
Dr. McLaren (Connie)
Dr. DePaolo
Dr. B
Dr. Bhowmick
Dr. Harper
Dr. Chandra
Advisory Board: Dean Smith, Dr. Schikora, Dr. Bhattacharyya, Mike Wood (Sony), Lori Danielson
(Clabber Girl), Neil Bhargava (GE Aviation), Brian Gosnell (NAL), Jeanette Spradlin (Union Hospital),
Ryan Smith (Kellogg’s)
Open House - spring date, must be a Friday -- 12-1pm with courtroom open
Invite students, faculty, Dean, APICS students, and business partners
Unveiling Center’s actions & the website
Informal event with networking available
Can arrange for a full course meal if need be
Becca will be visible webmaster (put my name and contact at bottom of page)
APICS page: should show case their events on the page somewhere (can also link to APICS events
page)
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Speaker Series - once a semester
Resume Review - once a year in the Spring
Student Sign-up/Login -- Skillsets
“Choose all skills that apply”
1. Six Sigma
2. ERP (SAP)
3. Project Management (PERT/CPM)
4. Minitab/SAS/JMP/SPSS
5. Optimization Solver/Lingo
6. Risk Analysis
7. Database Management
Header:
-center (middle) picture - SCOB representation
- faculty involvement link picture
- student involvement picture
- business involvement picture
OR
Random assortment of SCM related pictures
show accreditations of SCOB on center site:
- AACSB
- Princeton Review Best 296 Business Schools
- USNews Best Colleges 2011 Business Programs
APICS Page - Things Becca Needs:
- full names of all officers
include active member list (can be a link to a excel file or something) → “View our Current
Members”
- explanation and content for the “news” section
- information about APICS collaborations to populate “collaborations” section
- information on how to join APICS
15
- calendar of events to list or link to from calendar section of page
- photo from a previous case competition
Things Becca needs for the Affiliate Faculty Page:
- pictures of faculty (Should I use the ones on the ISU faculty pages?)
- updated expertise topics (I used “Teaching Interests”, but some [notably Dr. Chandra’s] are in a
different style and may unnecessarily take up too much space on the page
- links to faculty websites if they wish to display them (link to faculty webpage)
- a nice eloquent summary/introduction to the page and faculty participating in the Center
Email to OCSM Faculty:
- expertise
- do you want a new picture?
For Becca to do for meet with web dev:
- renovation home page
for home page events, use Rutger’s set up
enter in:
Oct 23 (next APICS meeting)
Nov 20 (next next APICS meeting)
Jan 18 (Workshop on How to Excel in Case Competitions)
Jan 25 (Mock Case Competition)
- remove “Social Outreach” link from navigation bar (it will go somewhere else)
put it as a block in the sidebar under Contact Us on left sidebar
- must include “This initiative has been funded by…” & me as Webmaster
- make APICS member list look like a page
insert return to APICS page link
16
Artifacts
Below is the logo for the Center of Supply Management Research to be displayed across the
website and any documents from the Center.
This picture represents graphically the core of CSMR, and its function.
17
An example of how the website’s navigation menu should visibly look upon interaction. The
large rectangles with rounded sides are the main sections, and if there is a plus box on the bar
then clicking that bar would create a drop-down menu displaying further links to click. The
displayed picture is an example of what the navigation menu should look like if a user was
currently on the “Affiliate Faculty” page.
18
The following is a snapshot created in Excel of the basic layout of the website. The different
pages of content would appear in the white space under the header and right of the sidebar.
19
This is what the proposed home page was set up to look like. This is what would appear in the
previous picture’s blank space. It is not to scale, and was decreased in size in order to fit a
screen capture.
Additional page layouts can be seen in the Excel document “Page Layouts” that goes with this
report.
20
Section Four:
Processes
Use Cases
Use case name:
Unique ID: 01
Student Sign-up
Area:
Center for Supply Management Research website
Actor(s):
Student
Stakeholder(s):
Student, CSMR
Level:
Blue
Description:
Student signs up for an account to access features of CSMR.
‘Parent’ Use Case:
Top level use case
Triggering Event:
Student desires to use Center’s features.
Steps Performed (Main Path)
Information for Steps
1. Student uses web browser to get to CSMR website.
2. Student clicks the “Sign-Up” link in the header of the
website.
3. Student sent to a page with a form to enter information.
4. Student fills out all required fields of the sign-up form.
Areas include: First name, last
name, Sycamore username, email address, degree type,
major, minor, graduation date,
skill set, and area of interest in
OSCM. It is required to select at
least one area of interest.
5. Student clicks “Register” button.
6. Website sends confirmation e-mail to student.
If student selected “prospective student in OCSM”, a
notification is sent to the Center’s director for follow-up
information to be sent to the student.
7. Student creates a password and logs into the website.
Steps Performed (Optional Path)
Information for Steps
1. Student clicks “Upload Resume” on header bar of website User must have a registered
after login to put their resumes onto the website.
student account.
2. Dialog box for choosing a file is displayed; the student
Chosen file should be in PDF
user finds the file of their resume to upload and selects it. format.
3. The record for the student user in the directory is updated
with a link to the uploaded file.
Pre-conditions:
Student has an interest in the Center.
Post-conditions:
Student becomes a member of the Center.
Assumptions:
Student is an OSCM major, minor, or prospective OSCM student.
Success Guarantee: Student is a registered user with access to all available student
resources on the website.
Minimum Guarantee: Student can access website.
Requirements Met:
Student signs up for the Center.
Outstanding Issues:
None
Risks:
Website inaccessible.
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Use case name:
Unique ID: 02
Faculty Research Download
Area:
Center for Supply Management Research website
Actor(s):
Internet user(s)
Stakeholder(s):
Faculty member, Internet user(s)
Level:
Blue
Description:
Internet user finds faculty’s in-progress research and wishes to view it.
‘Parent’ Use Case:
Top level use case
Triggering Event:
Internet user wishes to find information about OCSM topic.
Steps Performed (Main Path)
Information for Steps
1. User navigates to the CSMR website.
2. User finds way to Research section of website and clicks
“White Papers.”
3. User is taken to a page displaying current in-progress
research topics of Center’s affiliate faculty.
4. User selects the research they want to see.
5. User taken to page that displays a short description of
their research and its authors.
6. User selections “download” link to see white papers.
7. User taken to another page that asks for information
Information required for
about themselves before they can download the research. download: First name, last
name, whether a student,
faculty, professional, or none of
the above, organization, job
title, phone number, and e-mail
address.
8. With required fields filled out, user is given option to
download white papers.
9. Notification is sent to research’s author(s) with information
on downloader for potential contact.
Pre-conditions:
User would like to see research about an OSCM topic.
Post-conditions:
User gains access to in-progress research about OSCM topic.
Assumptions:
User is willing to give required information to center needed to download
faculty research.
Success
User gains access to in-progress research about OSCM topic.
Guarantee:
Minimum
User learns there is on-going research on their topic of interest.
Guarantee:
Requirements Met: Make faculty research available to others.
Outstanding
Faculty member completes research, and their white papers become
Issues:
unavailable for download.
Risks:
Website is inaccessible.
22
Use case name:
Area:
Actor(s):
Stakeholder(s):
Unique ID: 03
Student Search
Center for Supply Management Research website
Business partner employee(s)
Business partner, Student, Business partner’s customers, investors, and
community
Level:
Blue
Description:
Search through uploaded student resumes through the CSMR website
‘Parent’ Use Case:
Top level use case
Triggering Event:
Job opening in business
Steps Performed (Main Path)
Information for Steps
1. Business partner employee logs into center.
Need to have an account with
the center.
2. Employee navigates to Business Partner section of
website and selects link “Browse Our Students”
3. Employee fills out criteria they wish to narrow
Pick from area of interest,
available students for hire by.
skillset, OCSM major or minor,
and/or graduation date.
4. List of students who meet search criteria are
Student users of the website
displayed.
must have an account to have
their information displayed.
5. Employee selects a student and views their uploaded Student user must have
resume.
uploaded a resume for viewing.
6. Employee can choose to contact student if desired for
job opening.
Pre-conditions:
Business would like to fill a position.
Post-conditions:
Business can contact student to hire for unfilled position.
Assumptions:
Website is operational. Student users have entered in information to be
searched by, and have uploaded their resumes.
Success
Business partner finds a student that can be hired for their open position.
Guarantee:
Minimum
Business partner employee knows there are students at Indiana State
Guarantee:
University that could be prospective hires.
Requirements Met: Display potential students for hire to business partners.
Outstanding
Selected student(s) may be unavailable.
Issues:
Risks:
Website inaccessible.
23
Data Flow Diagrams
Context Diagram for the CSMR website
24
Diagram for the major processes of the CSMR website
25
Process Description for Student Search, Process 1
26
Process Description for Add Student Resume, process 4
27
Process Description for Faculty Research Download, Process 2
28
Exploded Diagram for the Faculty Research Download process 2.0
29
Process Description for high level User Sign-Up, process 3
30
Exploded Diagram for User Sign-Up, process 3
31
Process Description of Student Sign-Up, process 3.2
32
Section Five:
Recommendations
Going forward from this point, the highest priority is to get the CSMR website up and running.
Without it, the Center currently has no point of contact with potential members. However,
extensive testing of the website should first be done to make sure all of the links and
applications work as desired. Many users would be put off if links are broken or lead to the
wrong pages, so it is imperative to ensure everything works properly to meet their
expectations.
After the website is operational, I would recommend the majority of the Center’s time and
technology budget be spent on finding and retaining someone with the knowledge and
expertise to fix any errors or problems that may arise with the site, as well as help with
difficulties users may have. Either this same person or another should also handle keeping the
website up to date. Even if users are attracted to the website, if the information is not current
they will not feel the need to regularly engage and use the site.
A way to keep users that register with the site engaged with the Center could be a newsletter
with current events the Center is planning or recommends, as well as perhaps some reminders
of the features the website has available for different kinds of users. If a student user has not
uploaded a resume, perhaps a friendly reminder from the website would prompt them to do
so. This would expand the list of potential hires for business partners, as well as give that
student an opportunity for employment. To engage business partners, reminders about the
students available and suggestions to connect with the other businesses partnered with the
center may be a good idea. Such newsletters should not be too frequent as to annoy users,
however.
In order to promote itself online, connecting with other areas of the Indiana State University
website may also be a prudent decision. Creating a presence on social media is also something
to look into, but research should be done on the success of such a venture before establishing
accounts on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.