DigiSonos
Purchasing
You work with the IT division of the DigiSonos corporation. DigiSonos is building a digital platform
to rationalize and automate its operations and better connect with its suppliers. The new systems will manage most of the
Company’s functions (accounts payable, receiving, etc.). The CEO has set up a steering committee and instructed them to begin
developing the new systems. You are assigned to model the Purchasing department.
This is what purchasing has sent you.
From: DigiSonos Company Purchasing
To: you
The purchasing employees have just been reorganized into a team-based structure to more efficiently process internal purchase
orders. Our teams are responsible for reviewing internal orders for one or more product classes. For example, there is one
team that processes purchase orders for raw materials, another for office equipment, etc. A database tracks who is assigned to
which team.
Our department distinguishes between "product classes" and "products." The former are types of products (e.g., "laptop," "chair"),
the latter are the specific products (e.g., "Latitude X9000", "ThinkPad Z950") by one vendor. A product class might include
offerings from several different vendors. We buy directly from vendors. Each order might include many products, but goes
only to one vendor.
Orders are entered in the system by DigiSonos employees, who pick from a list of approved products and indicate the desired items
and quantities. Our teams then authorize the release of the orders, item by item. This means that they change the status of
the items (from 'Requested', to 'Authorized', and then 'Submitted'), so that the orders can be sent electronically to the
vendor. Managers might audit the order, if they want to do so.
The employee who enters the order also specifies the shipping address (one per order). Currently, a paper copy of all internal
orders sent to vendors is sent to the Receiving dept. The new system will eliminate the paper trails and send an alert
instead when an order is submitted to the vendor (if needed, model it as an attribute: "date alert sent").
Concurrent to the order processing, Teams assess product and vendor status. They use current and historical prices and
delivery errors to decide the status of each product: "Approved" / "Not Approved." Right now the Receiving Department sends
us data on delivery errors per each product ("% delivery error") that we store.
Thanks again for your help in doing all this.
- Clark Kent, Purchasing Manager