1 Managing Empty Containers

Some of what we find when designing MIS controls into systems is that the things we tend to need to control are sometimes very different than the main system elements that one might think of for a give system. For example, a key element of the cargo system controls in this unit involve empty containers. From the outside, the system looks like it starts with the Pickup of cargo from a shipper location in order to Deliver that cargo to the consignee location. However, we see that when viewed internally, the opposite is true: the system starts with the Delivery of an empty container to the shipper location and ends with the Pickup of that empty container from the consignee location. Effective control of the system is largely about the empty containers.

Discuss some specific MIS controls — primarily specific system metrics including when they would be collected, analyzed, and used — that need to be designed into the cargo system in order to properly control and optimize the flow of empty containers in the global system. Your controls should take the following conditions into account:

Some geographic areas tend to have more cargo consigned to locations than shipped from locations, resulting in a perpetual surplus of empty containers.
Some geographic areas tend to have more cargo shipped from locations than consigned into locations, resulting in a perpetual shortage of empty containers.
Some container shortages or surpluses exist mostly for certain container types (e.g., refrigerated 40′ containers, 20′ gas cylinder containers).
Some container shortages or surpluses are local phenomena, while others are more regional.
Having to move an empty container is considered a waste, with farther moves more wasteful than short-distance moves.

The objectives of your controls should optimize the system to:

minimize shipper wait times for needed empty containers,
minimize movements of empty containers, and
minimize the time each container is empty.

Note that different system stakeholders would probably prioritize these optimization objectives differently.

Response Guideline

Post your 150-250 word initial response early in the week, and then reply to at least two initial responses of your peers. In your responses, use your own observations to suggest or ask about how the described controls contribute to an overall optimization of empty container movements in the system. Also respond appropriately to anyone who posts comments or questions against your own postings. Keep all postings this week focused and to the point of MIS controls.

2 Facts (Measures) vs. Metrics/Controls

The star-schema dimensional warehouse being designed and developed in your semester project is based on a set of traditional data warehousing constructs that include the fundamental difference between facts and dimensions. Facts represent the measurable aspects of the business (typically the quantities associated with the BFO Processual Entities) that occur within the context of the dimensions (typically lists of BFO Independent Continuants). The dimensions also have properties that can be used to constrain any search of data related to the dimension. The existence of the dimension properties is the indication that they are Generically Dependent Continuants, and the actual values of those properties are Specifically Dependent Continuants. While these principles are easy to state, it takes practice to get them right in our designs.

The challenge you’ll run into when defining whether a single value should be treated as a new fact or as a property of a dimension will arise often. Generally, you want to use a fact if you want to be able to aggregate the value over a set or range of facts, and this is true whether that form of aggregation is a sum or average, or even a maximum or a minimum. Generally you want a new dimension property if you want to be able to search or constrain a search of the dimension based on the value of a property. Another way to describe the situation where you want to add new information as a new fact type is if you might want to be able to establish metric facts or control facts (as defined in our Chapter 16 reading in Biehl) based on the values obtained in the fact table. (When this is the case, the Fact table could be referred to as the Measure Fact table to differentiate it from the Metric Fact or Control Fact, but we usually just keep calling the measures Facts.)

To illustrate, imagine defining a fact type related to the order value of a product on a particular customer order, say 100.00 in USD. That fact will require numerous dimensions to provide context: the Customer, the Product, the Salesperson or Territory, the Ship-To location, the Order Date and Time, the Requested Date and Time, the Payment Account, the Warehouse assigned, the Carrier assigned based on the shipping options needed, etc. Most of these dimensions represent the Independent Continuants that participate in the order process; and even the Order processual entity might be in an Operation dimension. That one fact might be part of many aggregations or queries resulting in Metric Facts: average order value by time period, or product type; or total order value by brand (a hierarchic aggregation of Product) or sales territory, or both. The permutations of aggregations that can be defined and stored as Metric Facts is almost endless, Any of these aggregations can then be used to drive time-series analysis so that we could define Control Facts for monitoring the control limits on those aggregations over time as well as monitoring those values against specification limits.

Describe a few important facts that you feel your warehouse will need to be able to store, with some that represent a level of detail for something you expect to be able to know within YOUR company, and some that represent a level of detail you would be able to obtain for your broader economic sector. For each, describe the basic dimensionality of the fact in your emerging design, and then describe a few Metric Facts you think could be aggregated or queried off of your base facts against the dimensions you’ve chosen.

Response Guideline

Post your 250-400 word initial response early in the week, and then reply to at least two initial responses of your peers. In your responses, use your own observations to suggest or ask about how the described metrics or controls might be used in the strategic management of the business. Also respond appropriately to anyone who posts comments or questions against your own postings. Keep all postings this week focused and to the point of MIS controls.

^{"Place your order now for a similar assignment and have exceptional work written by our team of experts, guaranteeing you "A" results."}