When two companies merge, the information technology (IT) departments of the two companies are also merged. This merger typically requires the development of a meaningful data center costing methodology that can be used for planning, budgeting and cost justification. This paper describes the...

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a set of applications that automate finance and human resource departments and help manufacturers handle jobs such as order processing and production scheduling. This paper attempts to provide an overview of an ERP system along with the real experiences of...

This paper presents the results of a study that investigates the sophistication of the information technology (IT) employed by maquiladoras . The maquiladoras are Mexican manufacturing and assembly plants that have been established by non‐Mexican, primarily US, companies to take advantage of...

Accelerating the process by which new products are introduced to the marketplace has become a strategic imperative in many markets. An emerging precondition for new‐product development success is the integration of information technology with innovative management practices. The purpose of...

There are two types of interrelated downsizing; human resource downsizing, which refers to reduction in personnel, and computer downsizing, or the migration from a mainframe to distributive processing platforms. The corporate strategies underlying each vary, but technology is generally involved...

Some industrial organizations using computer‐integrated manufacturing (CIM) for managing intelligent product and process data during a concurrent processing are facing acute implementation difficulties. Some of the difficulties are due to the fact that CIM – in the current form – is not...

The concept of teams and teamwork is increasingly becoming an important key to productivity and employee satisfaction in the contemporary workplace. This paper looks at the concept of teams and teamwork and several innovative ways of using teams. Among the innovative ways of using teams are...

The commercial spreadsheet is 21 years old and is now a commonplace business tool. To assess its impact on today’s modern business, this paper presents research based on a questionnaire survey of 227 respondents drawn from a range of business disciplines, and at various levels within their...

Due to the strategic importance of IT, there exists an undeniable need for a systematic analysis before deciding whether or not a particular IT function should be outsourced. A study that provides a systematic analysis for evaluating components of the company’s IT for outsourcing may be useful...

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is an inter‐organizational information system that requires collaboration and commitment between trading partners. The potential benefits that EDI can offer are substantial. However, the adoption and use of electronic linkages between companies is not as...