13-14 Analyze SourceGas’s problems with its old system. What management, organization, and technology factors were responsible for these problems? What was the business impact of these problems?
Management: The number of work orders (authorizing specific work or repairs to be done) processed per mile traveled is a key performance indicator for utility companies, especially SourceGas. The company incurs very heavy fuel, maintenance, and other operational costs when work orders must be rerouted. The work order and dispatch processes required too much manual effort. All work was dispatched manually, and there were no systematized scheduling priorities, making it difficult for service technicians to consistently be assigned workloads that were aligned with business objectives.
Organizational: Dispatchers were highly experienced and had the requisite knowledge to assign technicians with the appropriate set of skills to perform the work. But they had to commit to memory more than 225 different types of work that technicians performed in the field. Dispatchers had to manually initiate work orders and assign work to technicians via mobile devices.
Technology: The outdated system could no longer be easily modified to keep up with new requirements. Even though the system has to be able to accommodate rapid and constant change, enhancements to the system were just too costly. SourceGas needed a new system to automate its work order and scheduling processes that could be updated and changed much more easily. Management also wanted internal technicians to be able to make changes easier and faster than outside sources had done in the past. (Learning Objective 13.1: How does building new systems produce organizational change? AACSB: Analytical thinking.)
13-15 What role did end users play in developing SourceGas’s new work order and dispatch system? How did the project team make sure users were involved? What would have happened to the project if they had not done this?
SourceGas took user input and user training very seriously. The system project had a committee of super-user technicians as well as an operations team to make sure the system was built to the right specifications. Its technicians had provided important input during the requirements gathering and design stages of system building. Twenty percent of the workforce was trained and then provided feedback to make sure the new system met their requirements. That experience was used to create training materials for the rest of the workforce when the system went live. This approach helped ensure users would buy into the new system and that no business process was overlooked. (Learning Objective 13.2: What are the core activities in the systems development process? AACSB: Analytical thinking.)
13-16 What types of system-building methods and tools did SourceGas use for building its system?
SourceGas used an iterative approach and agile development methodology. Agile development focuses on rapid delivery of working software by breaking a large project into a series of small subprojects that are completed in short periods of time using iteration and continuous feedback. Each mini-project is worked on by a team as if it were a complete project, including planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing, and documentation. Improvement or addition of new functionality takes place within the next iteration as developers clarify requirements. This helps to minimize the overall risk, and allows the project to adapt to changes more quickly. Agile methods emphasize face-to-face communication over written documents, encouraging people to collaborate and make decisions quickly and effectively.
The company began with a requirements-gathering workshop with an outside vendor. The objective was to establish system requirements and develop business rules to guide the work order and scheduling processes. SourceGas’s biggest priorities were to 1) automate work scheduling; 2) maintain the company’s existing timesheet process; and 3) ensure minimal change required for field technicians to use the new system. For its solution, SourceGas chose SAP Workforce Scheduling and Optimization software package by ClickSoftware, which integrates with its existing SAP systems, including SAP ERP and SAP CRM. (Learning Objective 13.3: What are the principal methodologies for modeling and designing systems? AACSB: Analytical thinking.)
13-17 Discuss the issue of software package customization at SourceGas.
The system had to be designed to schedule and route all the field technician work according to various rules and conditions. The system had to be familiar and easy to use for mobile workers with the new mobile app user experience mirroring field workers’ existing user experience as much as possible. This was especially critical for time reporting, which required some simplification while adhering nevertheless to com