Riordan

Telecommunication Systems Used in My Workplace

I work for a company called Techtronic Industries, otherwise known as TTI. This company has branches, offices and remote locations all over the world. The developed communication avenues have to venture over land and water to connect its many operations together to maintain its delicate business fabric. Since there are so many facets of communication facets needed, there has been great planning and skill poured into its network telecommunication systems.

I will focus primarily on the South Carolina location into which we have many different telecommunication devices operating to create this system. The four areas I will discuss are the:

1) Customer Service Center

2) Inventory Management Department

3) Product Design Department

4) Field Personnel and Managers

The customer service centers use a series of computers and phone systems alike to monitor and respond to customer service needs. They have a series of computers networked in a system similar to a “Ring Topology”. There is one central hub, or data access point, into which the incoming messages derive from. This point is also the area into which they can access the SAP system (involves inventory management as well) to order parts for customers, or to see if they are still in production. All of the information being sent from the terminals goes through one final screening service before they can be received by customers, and/or consumers.

The inventory management department basically runs most of its systems through a star topology as well and they also heavily with the SAP system for monitoring its inventory levels. There are also certain terminal points that will be able to connect to the company intranet as well as an internet portal for the retail consumers. These systems deal with shipping, inventory, and production status as well as customer service so the company intranet serves these systems with the internal component.

The product design department has its own series of computers set up in a without an intranet or internet access point. They a have an interrelated system close to a star topology, but has external transmission point. All of the terminals within the product design department can work with one another, but there is not external access point to help maintain its level of security by eliminating the chance for any confidential information from being leaked.

Last but not least is the field personnel and management team. This system gets a little more complicated because there are many devices at work. There are stationary terminals, mobile terminals (laptops), smart phones (pocket pc), and intranet VPN network.

The mobile pocket pc’s are designed to work with the email system as well as basic internet applications. They are not able to connect to the VPN to access the company intranet. The stationary terminals and laptops have the ability to access the VPN intranet as well as the basic email system. I would have to associate this particular set up in alignment with an “Mesh” type of networking system. The extended star topology seemed to have a similar set up if each section was broken down into its own form.

All of these systems funnel down into one hub, server access point to transmit the information overseas to our main headquarters in Hong Kong. I believe their network design to be that of the mesh/star/bus network. There is too much collaboration going on between too many entities to label it as one of the other. That particular location has the ability to access any portion of the company worldwide without restriction.