Air Cargo Portal Services Brings

Question 1

Information systems have become a major part of the almost all industries including the air cargo industry. Information systems have helped the air cargo industry remain competitive, provide customers and other with an efficient and easy to use service, and has kept the industry up to date. In 2003, Cargo Patrol Services (CPS) opened for business as the air cargo industry’s first full-service Internet portal that provided the industry with an electronic booking and shipment management system. Without this new system, the air cargo industry would have suffered, especially after the September 11th terrorist attacks when investments in airline declined.

The purpose of the new information system was to implement a process that was measurable and supported by data to make it more efficient, enhance customer services, and reduce operational costs. All of these areas are essential to the air cargo industry, and the new information system enabled this to happen.

Question 2

Design: The first design feature that Unisys had to ensure was a system that would work with other systems that airlines were using at that time. The major problem with this feature was that each airline had its own pricing and booking procedures. In order to work around this problem, they decided to use an auction-model system instead of a price quotation system.

Another important design feature that Unisys had to think about was the user interface. The company had to ensure that the system was easy to use so that it would lower costs and the users would like and accept the changes. To ensure this they decided to minimize the number of screens to click through, provide users with help menus and add features to reduce recurring bookings.

Data: In order to ensure that the new technology would benefit the other businesses that relied on the air cargo industry, Unisys ensured that the system allowed the business to input the data they needed in order for the transactions to process properly, and in a timely manner.

Cost: One of the company’s main goals was to keep costs as low as possible. One way they achieved this goal was to take an object-oriented approach and reuse some existing modules from previous projects. By solidifying a plan before anything was implemented, they were able to reduce costs that would have been associated with making changes to the system after the project was completed.

Operations: To ensure that the system would be useful to end users, Unisys made sure that end users were involved in the process. Throughout development, end users provided feedback as to what they did and did not want, and to help find any problems that may have been present on the system.

Question 3

Management Issues:

• They needed to make sure about the impact of the new system on their competitors, and customers to make sure it works properly and can beat other competitors in business.

• They had to make a precise estimation about the project size and also the project structure, and make sure about the costs and consequences due to the current high demands and competition.

• They had to decide if the new system design with new structure can improve their business and if it’s cost benefit at all.

Organizational Issues:

• They needed to get staff and customers involved to find out about their requirement and needs to improve the system.

• They had to inform employees about the new system and its benefits toward customer’s satisfaction and company’s benefits.

• They also had to train their employee’s and staff to be familiar with the new system.

Technological Issues:

• They needed to know if it worth the expense they make to change their old system into a new and up to date technology, and also if these software and all other components they implemented can last long and doesn’t go out of date and get old pretty quick.

• By implementing new technology they needed either hire new IT staff of train heir IT staff or managers in order to be on top thing all the time and it was one of their issue as well that they had to decide on it.

• Also, they needed to see if the new system is compatible and integrated well with their legacy system.

Question 4

The level of project risk is influenced by project size, project structure, and the level of technical expertise of the information systems staff and project team.

• Technology level is low. The Unisys aircargo system was already used by two of the three carriers (Air Canada, United, and Northwest), and Unisys also had the advantage of Web development and integration expertise gained from other projects. Unisys also decided on an object-oriented approach to reuse existing modules from its other projects: key technologies such as a weblogic server and a multitier architecture using J2EE.

• Project structure is medium-low. Unisys need to create a system that would work with the various legacy systems and the differing procedures used by airlines. The site had