Introduction
The paper summarizes an article about Health Board, a non-profit organization in New Zealand. The paper further discusses the merits and demerits of selecting an oracle 11i Enterprise solution (ERP) and Windows NT operating systems for the organization. And finally, the paper concludes.
Article Summary
The article gives a brief background about Health Board, a nonprofit organization in New Zealand. The organization provides health care to the public. The Health Board is owned by a public organization. The Board provides health care for more than two million people. It has spread its services across the region accounting for 30%. The Board has structured itself and posses’ seven business units i.e. a specialized teaching hospital, community services, mental health services, and clinical support services among other units.
The article elaborates the involvement of the ConsultCo firm to assess the ability of supply chain management in the management aspect of the Organization. Terms of reference involve, assessment of supply chain optimization and review of reports. A review of SCO shows some weakness concerning core business operations functions and ConsultCo recommends solutions which comprise of organization restructuring, business re-engineering, and ERP implementation (Idea Group Publishing, 23). However, it is learned that Oracle 10.7 was once implemented in the organizations some years. It was highly tailored and this made it fail to provide the strategic vision envisaged by the Board. The ConsultCo recommended further that oracle 10.7 financial inabilities be supported with Oracle. The Health Board in 2000 began a complete overhaul and upgrades. The ES business solution was believed to offer a much-needed remedy for the Board. The Board had 8 objectives for ES consideration; i.e. achieving identifiable savings in line with the Board Strategic business plan, saving accounts via efficient and well-defined standards incorporated in costing mechanism in the inventory, implementing procurement, providing clear process regarding delegation of authority and risk management through procurement and acting as an agent of change regarding business process and work ethics were a sure strength for ES to be considered (Idea Group Publishing, 24).
The article consequently assesses how restructuring the organization started. Because of restructuring, new roles and job description to meet the organization’s vision was created. The Organization valued 2 major broad options for upgrade i.e. upgrading from oracle 10.7 to oracle 11 or 11i ERP applications. The choice of upgrade to adopt was a challenging decision for the Board to make. This was because; differences in mode of operation were challenging for the management, whereas oracle 11 was operational earlier in 1999; oracle 11i was recent in the business world, only released in 2000. The Health Board then decided to settle on Oracle 11i which is web-supported.
The article provides a milestone for ES implementation and business in line with a suitable IT platform. Furthermore, the article compares features that are associated with UNIX and Windows NT and finally it elaborates challenges facing the Board regarding options of operating system to adopt (Idea Group Publishing, 24).
Merits and demerits of Windows NT
Windows NT operating system plays a significant role because of its capability to adapt to diverse standard IT platforms. This is an advantage that most organizations appreciate as a choice of their ERP solution implementation platform. Secondly, Windows NT operating system is easily manageable because of the friendly graphical user interface (GUI) in which even an inexperienced user of the system will be faster and easier to learn. The graphical user interface provides easier navigation tools which facilitated simplifying usage and administration at the same time (Idea Group Publishing, 28).
Thirdly, Windows NT is highly portable and compatible with other windows based applications for instance Microsoft office, FrontPage among other applications. It also provides the environment for programming such as “Active server Pages”, cold fusion, and visual basic. The popularity of these languages is on the rise because of simple to understand and apply.
However, Windows NT involves having a planned budget for it compared to other operating systems which are in the market. The Total Cost of Owners is made payable by the buyer or companies using them. This is unlike other operating systems platforms which are cost less in implementation (Idea Group Publishing, 28).
Additionally, windows are known to need more resources to sustain, maintain and support it thus this pushes up the cost of ownership. The cost of ownership of Windows NT significantly increases when the total cost of ownership is factored into buying price. Secondly, Windows NT does not offer much needed administrative support like other operating systems it has insufficient disk storage such as advanced server which is necessary and requisite like other operating systems such as Unix. These perform limited tasks.
Merits and demerits of oracle 11i
Oracle 11i is ideal and advantageous because it can support a wider variety of platforms. UNIX and Windows NT among other operating systems provide a much-needed platform for oracle 11i ERP implementation. Oracle 11i supports wide functionalities and applications as well (Idea Group Publishing, 29).
However, Oracle 11i possesses some drawbacks in its implementation. Because it is a new technology, there is less IT manpower to understand how to customize to facilitate integration with organization information needs. Secondly, the cost associated with implementation as an ERP concerning planning, scheduling, and implementation needs a huge budget set aside by the firm (Idea Group Publishing, 29).
Work Cited
Idea Group Publishing. The Selection of the IT Platform: Enterprise System.
Implementation in the NZ Health Board. Pennsylvania: Idea Group Inc, 2005.