Case Study 15: Albassami's Job Is Not Feasible Without IT

07:46 Amrie 0 Comments

Introduction


AlBassami International Group is considered one of the biggest companies specialized in vehicle transportation in the Middle East. The group started its activity in 1968 (approximately 47 years ago). AlBassami International Group has a variety of a good grip of activities which are:
  • All Kinds of vehicle transportation service
  • Transportation of goods and supplies
  • Special transportation service (VIP)
  • Trucks and vehicle maintenance and repair centre.
At present, the group is operating all over the kingdom and extends throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. More than 1000 shipping contract including 2000 to 2500 bills of lading daily occurred between the main branches.

Question 1

What systems are described here? What valuable information do they provide?

The system described here is the shipping information system. The system provide  a lot of important information like all the sender information such as the sent car, the truck number, the sender and receiving branches, and it also sends an SMS to the clients acknowledging the arrival of the car. Besides, the system also records the client’s data, and holds maintenance information. Linking the data of vehicle maintenance centers with the transportation service helps to enhance company performance and achieve better customer service. The system also enables standard reports to be provided to top management and head sectors about the productivity of each branch, resulting in accurate identification of needs for different regions 
and thus proper budget allocation. In addition, the system allowed a better audit on all drivers’ behavior by using the output of the vehicles’ tracking information.   

Question 2

What values did the IT/ IS investments add to Albassami?

In Albassami, the company used the system that based on clustered Dell servers running Windows 2003 and connected to over 270 Windows XP clients. The database management system, used as the backbone of the system, is Sybase Adaptive server, whereas clients use SQL Anywhere. There is replication between the server at headquarters and the clients’ branches. Throughout the replication, branches’ data is sent to the server and aggregated to create the most updated database version, and then sent back to the branches. This means every branch has the most recent version of the client list, trucks’ availability, and new shipping contracts so that any customer is able to deal with any branch at any time.

Question 3

How did implementing the Shipping Information System address the business needs and information requirements of Albassami?
Implementing the shipping information system address the business needs and information requirements of Albassami is the recipient branch will create a receipt entry on the system upon arrival of the truck and then and Short Messaging Service communication (SMS) is created and sent to the customer, who will then go to the destination branch to receive the car. 
In addition, Albassami maintains all the sender information such as the sent car, the truck number, the sender and receiving branches, and it also sends an SMS to the client acknowledging the arrival of the car. The system also records the client’s data, and holds maintenance information. Linking the data of vehicle maintenance centers with the transportation service helps to enhance company performance and achieve better customer service. 

The system also enables standard reports to be provided to top management and head sectors about the productivity of each branch, resulting in accurate identification of needs for different regions and thus proper budget allocation. In addition, the system allowed a better audit on all drivers’ behavior by using the output of the vehicles tracking information. Proper performance monitoring resulted in adequate employee’s appraisals and consequently loyal staff.

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