Apply Your Knowledge This section contains four mini-cases. Each case describes a situation, explains your role, and requires you to apply what you learned in the chapter. I Green Design After several years as a successful architectural firm in Southern California, Green Design decided to ex- pand by adding two new business ventures: a civil engineering projects group, and a group for commer- cial building projects. As a senior systems analyst, you have been asked to study the situation and make recommendations. Tasks 1. Should Green Design adopt ERP? Why or why not? Provide specific reasons. 2. Is the experience of other companies relevant? Use the Internet to locate a software platform that may be useful to Green Design. Give a summary of ERP solutions you find for architectural and engineering firms. 3. Should Green Design use separate portals for employees, customers, and suppliers? 4. Before selecting software and hardware for the new system, how should Green Design evaluate ini- tial cost and total cost of ownership? What would be the main components? 2 Passing Lane Passing Lane is a small trucking company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Passing Lane's information system consists of a file server and three workstations where freight clerks enter data, track shipments, and prepare freight bills. To perform their work, the clerks obtain data from the server and use database and spreadsheet programs stored on stand-alone PCs to process the data. At your meeting yesterday, Passing lane's president approved your recommendation to create a relational database to handle opera- tions and provide links for the company's shippers and customers. Tasks 1. Review the concept of supply chain management. Although Passing Lane offers services rather than products, could the SCM concept apply to the design of the new system? Why or why not? 2. What would be the advantages of selecting an Web-based architecture for Passing Lane's system? 3. Since the firm is growing rapidly, what design features should be included in the new system to ensure it can grow with the company. 4. Given that Passing Lane currently uses computers for managing their operations, what design considerations should be given to legacy systems? Explain your answer.