Monday, October 12, 2009
When the time comes that I will be hired as an IT consultant of the university and they want my suggestion about the internet connection be improve, hmmmm…..
Infrastructure
Telecommunication infrastructure remains one of the major issues affecting technology deployment required for growth and development. There has however, been massive improvement in infrastructure over the past few years. Telecommunications and Network Services (TNS) and Facilities Planning has been upgrading the campus telecommunications (voice, data) infrastructure. The project, known as Telecommunications Infrastructure Project, or TIP.
Technology
As the world becomes increasingly dependent on instantaneous, on-demand global communication, opportunity calls for those who can keep the lines open and messages flowing.
From the transfer of voice, video and data for immediate communication to the use of satellite transmissions for video conferencing and the infrastructure for the Internet and other distance learning capabilities, telecommunications technology keeps the world connected.
The Telecommunications Technology (TEL) department at Texas State Technical College provides superior instruction on the latest industry-standard Telecommunications skills and equipment.
Once thought of as only telephone wiring and switching, this technology encompasses electronics, computers, fiber optics, broadband transmission and new compression technologies. It includes popular alternatives to traditional telephone service, such as cellular telephones and paging services.
Faster connection and download with ISDN
An ISDN connection works in the same way as a standard dial-up, but you need a digital (ISDN) line (marketed by BT as Business or Home Highway) and an ISDN card, external ‘modem’ (terminal adapter), pbx or router.
ISDN will give you a faster and more stable connection - a few seconds to connect rather than the 20-30 seconds experienced with an analogue modem - and faster downloads. Web pages should appear about 30-50% faster. And ISDN is nearly twice as fast as the best modem connection for uploading data, so sending e-mail and uploading to a website will be quicker too.
An ISDN line gives you two channels, which can be used as two separate phone lines. Call costs per minute and per channel are the same as for an analogue line, while line rental for a business line is about twice as much as for one analogue line (after inclusive calls and discounts).
In addition, there is an initial installation fee and the cost of the new ISDN "modem", but since you have the usability of two analogue lines it doesn't cost any more to run than two analogue lines.
Unmetered means inclusive call costs - not always-on
You pay a monthly or annual subscription to an ISP and they give you a freephone (0800 or similar number) to connect with. Packages with inclusive call costs, known as unmetered Internet access, are available by agreement between BT (which owns most of the local wiring infrastructure), the other telcos and the ISPs.
This depends on BT giving the others freephone numbers at a fixed cost per subscriber, rather than for timed or data traffic usage, but there is more to this than money. If many people were to subscribe to these services and stay connected for much longer periods - or even all day - then exchanges and trunk lines could become overloaded, resulting in many more engaged tones. For this reason many ISPs automatically disconnect dormant connections after a certain period of inactivity.
"Always-on" cable and ADSL connections are becoming more widely available
These give you a permanent connection and much faster data speeds. For ADSL you need a standard BT telephone line, and pay for a connection through an ISP which provides an ADSL “modem" as part of the installation cost. BT replaces the standard socket with a '"splitter" box, which gives you a normal phone socket as well as the ADSL socket. There is now a self-installed option at lower cost for a residential account but not yet for business accounts.
The ADSL modem or router connects your standalone PC or network to the ADSL network. You can use the standard socket for analogue voice calls at the same time as the ADSL line is being used for your Internet connection, but there could be some problems or limitations using it with an analogue modem or fax machine.
Connections from a single computer to the modem could be by USB or by Ethernet card and cable, in the same way as for a LAN. There are business and residential services with different contention ratios, service levels and costs, there are single and multi-user connections, and there are three different download speeds.
Some ISPs will give you one or more fixed IP addresses, so you can run a server over ADSL, although as the service has no Quality of Service guarantee it would be unwise to run a business-critical server application over an ADSL line.
Similar considerations apply to cable connections, which differ slightly according to the cableco involved.
Mobile ‘on the move’ and wireless ‘on the pause’ connectivity
The latest mobile phones offer Internet access on the move using WAP (wireless application protocol) and GPRS, and ‘3’ now offer third generation UMTS over a growing network. Connection may be made through a laptop using an appropriate card or via a mobile phone handset using a cable, infrared or ‘Bluetooth’ connection.
WiFi (802.11 standard) ‘hotspots’ are springing up in airports, railway stations, hotels, coffee shops etc. where local wireless network connections are available if you have a wireless card in your laptop and a subscription to the relevant service.
Satellite could bring always-on downloads or broadcast Internet channels
A mass market satellite connection means having a dish on the exterior of the building for download and a normal telephone or some other connection for upload. Download speeds can be similar to ADSL or Cable modem but upload is limited to the dial-up speed. Two-way broadband satellite is now available across the UK but installation and running costs are relatively expensive when compared to ADSL or Cable.
The mass market is for Internet through a TV whether by satellite or other form of digital link. But home usage is likely to be different from business usage, and services may develop accordingly.
Leased lines for permanent connection with Quality of Service guarantees
This is the way corporate and specialist service or heavy user companies connect. They run servers that require high or guaranteed upload capacity, serving applications which are core or critical to their businesses. For most small businesses it is more economical to have servers co-located, or server applications hosted and possibly maintained by specialist companies. Remotely located servers can have operating systems and applications administered by you or your staff using a more economical Internet connection. An economical alternative to the traditional Leased Line could be an SDSL (Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) connection, operating at 2Mbps in each direction, although these are likely to be limited by technological limitations and commercial viability to a radius of around 3km from major city centre exchanges.
Steps/processes
Use of the Internet enabled an order of magnitude improvement in the auto insurance coverage change business process cited above. Similarly, there are a number of other technologies that help in process improvement efforts like the Internet. Here are 10 of those technologies and examples that show how they are helping Lean improvement:
1. The Internet: Web portals have enabled organizations business processes from order entry to logistics to customer service to be performed from anywhere, anytime by their employees. In some cases, these organizations are making these portals available even for their end-customers on an around-the-clock basis, making it very convenient. It used to take a week or more for an application for a new credit card to be approved or rejected by a credit card company. Now, a consumer can apply for a credit card online and get an decision in seconds. A good question to ask in any Lean process improvement effort is: "Is there a way, the Internet can increase the process cycle efficiency for this business process?"
2. Wireless Connectivity: Many property and casualty insurance companies have rolled out wireless connectivity to claims adjusters that are on the road, especially in case of catastrophic events like the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. In the absence of wireless connectivity, information about claims may be sent by paper back to a central office where someone enters the same information into a claims software system. Wireless connectivity has the potential of having the claims adjusters entering the information directly into the claims software system remotely, cutting days from the business process.
3. Automated Workflow Systems: Automated workflow systems cut down the time, work items wait in a queue for processing. Many business processes suffer from wasteful physical movement of paper from desk to desk. When a piece of paper reaches the next destination, it waits behind other work items that arrived before it. Automated workflow systems can keep the work items moving, raising alerts if work items have been waiting for too long a time, re-routing themselves to others if someone is busy, etc. They also provide visibility into exactly where the bottlenecks may be in a business process, enabling sane Lean process improvement efforts to smooth these out.
4. Scanning and Digitization: Computing and computer storage have become so inexpensive that many organizations scan and digitize most official documents that come in as paper. These may be legal documents or invoices from vendors of services, supplies, or raw material. Thereafter, it enables the circulation of these digital versions of these documents rather than wasteful movement of physical paper across the company. Digitization also enables processes to move geographically long distances effortlessly, enabling employees from geographically dispersed office locations to participate in the same workflow, for example.
5. Service-Oriented Architectures: If an organization is using the most up-to-date transportation companies to handle its shipping needs, it can initiate a delivery from it own corporate applications seamlessly. These shipping companies have made their backend software systems accessible to any organizations' software systems using service-oriented architectures (SOA). The SOA technology enables software systems in the same or disparate organizations talk to each other and exchange information automatically, without any human intervention. Many large corporations have realized enormous gains in process cycle efficiency in their supply chain business processes by allowing suppliers' and customers' software talk to their backend software systems using SOA. By enabling automatic exchange of data between organizations' computers in an electronic form, SOA eliminates wasteful and time-consuming exchange of paper and redundant entry of data in to multiple computer applications.
6. Document Management Systems: Document management systems allow an organization to execute business processes that require collaboration across geographies, and even continents. They allow two people in different cities or countries to work collaboratively on a business process by making sure the changes they make are done in an orderly fashion and nothing is lost during the collaboration. Document management systems allow the check-out of documents for editing and require checking them back in once they are done. Thus changes made by different people on the same document are not lost. In many business processes, this has the potential of eliminating waste due to motion and most importantly the quality of the collaboration involved. In the absence of such systems, more time may be expended in sending documents back and forth by e-mail and coordinating changes made to the same documents by different people.
7. Business Process Monitoring and Measurement: Lean process improvement efforts are usually highly targeted at certain steps of a business process. Pareto's principle applies to business processes also: 80 percent of the bottlenecks and improvement usually comes from 20 percent of the steps in a business process. Business process monitoring and measurement solutions may provide a good idea of where these bottlenecks are, and – more importantly – make sure that service levels needed by individual process steps are met fully so that the whole process works as required.
8. Business Process Management Systems: Business process management systems (BPMS) enable streamline and integrate different software systems that may be involved in a business process. By providing an overall framework for the business process, BPMS systems enable smooth flow of business processes across different departments, functions and backend software systems. They also provide monitoring and reports that can help a Lean process improvement effort with measurement before and after improvement efforts.
9. Business Rules Systems: Business rules systems enable the automation of wasteful manual activities in many business processes. For example, automobile insurance underwriters may have this simple business rule: "If the applicant is a male under 21 years of age and the car is a convertible, set the application apart for manual underwriting." Those cases that are not cover by this rule – or other rules which the company might institute – can automatically be approved or rejected by an automated system. The business rule system in this case enables the automation of an otherwise, wasteful and time-consuming, manual business process.
10. Online CRM Systems/Self-Service FAQ Systems: Many organizations have placed customer relationship management (CRM) systems online as part of their web site. A customer can login and create a trouble ticket online for a support or service request instead of talking to a customer support representative on the telephone. Many organizations are using self-service frequently asked questions (FAQ) sections on their web sites where customers can see if their problem has been faced by other customers, and what the solution was, in those cases. These systems enable the speed up of customer service and support processes. FAQ sections on company web sites may even eliminate service or support calls if they answered their questions or solved their service or support problem. They are convenient for end customers since they are available on the Internet, around the clock, providing even better service than when done manually by telephone.
Lean process improvement efforts have the goal of increasing process velocity and improving PCE. A number of new information technologies offer the promise of achieving these goals by their judicious and appropriate use. In some cases, these technologies have the potential of improving process velocity and efficiency by orders of magnitude. They do this by significantly cutting down waste in the form of unnecessary transportation, waiting and manual data entr
References
http://www.waco.tstc.edu/tel/tel_aas/index.php
http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c061211a.asp
Infrastructure
Telecommunication infrastructure remains one of the major issues affecting technology deployment required for growth and development. There has however, been massive improvement in infrastructure over the past few years. Telecommunications and Network Services (TNS) and Facilities Planning has been upgrading the campus telecommunications (voice, data) infrastructure. The project, known as Telecommunications Infrastructure Project, or TIP.
Technology
As the world becomes increasingly dependent on instantaneous, on-demand global communication, opportunity calls for those who can keep the lines open and messages flowing.
From the transfer of voice, video and data for immediate communication to the use of satellite transmissions for video conferencing and the infrastructure for the Internet and other distance learning capabilities, telecommunications technology keeps the world connected.
The Telecommunications Technology (TEL) department at Texas State Technical College provides superior instruction on the latest industry-standard Telecommunications skills and equipment.
Once thought of as only telephone wiring and switching, this technology encompasses electronics, computers, fiber optics, broadband transmission and new compression technologies. It includes popular alternatives to traditional telephone service, such as cellular telephones and paging services.
Faster connection and download with ISDN
An ISDN connection works in the same way as a standard dial-up, but you need a digital (ISDN) line (marketed by BT as Business or Home Highway) and an ISDN card, external ‘modem’ (terminal adapter), pbx or router.
ISDN will give you a faster and more stable connection - a few seconds to connect rather than the 20-30 seconds experienced with an analogue modem - and faster downloads. Web pages should appear about 30-50% faster. And ISDN is nearly twice as fast as the best modem connection for uploading data, so sending e-mail and uploading to a website will be quicker too.
An ISDN line gives you two channels, which can be used as two separate phone lines. Call costs per minute and per channel are the same as for an analogue line, while line rental for a business line is about twice as much as for one analogue line (after inclusive calls and discounts).
In addition, there is an initial installation fee and the cost of the new ISDN "modem", but since you have the usability of two analogue lines it doesn't cost any more to run than two analogue lines.
Unmetered means inclusive call costs - not always-on
You pay a monthly or annual subscription to an ISP and they give you a freephone (0800 or similar number) to connect with. Packages with inclusive call costs, known as unmetered Internet access, are available by agreement between BT (which owns most of the local wiring infrastructure), the other telcos and the ISPs.
This depends on BT giving the others freephone numbers at a fixed cost per subscriber, rather than for timed or data traffic usage, but there is more to this than money. If many people were to subscribe to these services and stay connected for much longer periods - or even all day - then exchanges and trunk lines could become overloaded, resulting in many more engaged tones. For this reason many ISPs automatically disconnect dormant connections after a certain period of inactivity.
"Always-on" cable and ADSL connections are becoming more widely available
These give you a permanent connection and much faster data speeds. For ADSL you need a standard BT telephone line, and pay for a connection through an ISP which provides an ADSL “modem" as part of the installation cost. BT replaces the standard socket with a '"splitter" box, which gives you a normal phone socket as well as the ADSL socket. There is now a self-installed option at lower cost for a residential account but not yet for business accounts.
The ADSL modem or router connects your standalone PC or network to the ADSL network. You can use the standard socket for analogue voice calls at the same time as the ADSL line is being used for your Internet connection, but there could be some problems or limitations using it with an analogue modem or fax machine.
Connections from a single computer to the modem could be by USB or by Ethernet card and cable, in the same way as for a LAN. There are business and residential services with different contention ratios, service levels and costs, there are single and multi-user connections, and there are three different download speeds.
Some ISPs will give you one or more fixed IP addresses, so you can run a server over ADSL, although as the service has no Quality of Service guarantee it would be unwise to run a business-critical server application over an ADSL line.
Similar considerations apply to cable connections, which differ slightly according to the cableco involved.
Mobile ‘on the move’ and wireless ‘on the pause’ connectivity
The latest mobile phones offer Internet access on the move using WAP (wireless application protocol) and GPRS, and ‘3’ now offer third generation UMTS over a growing network. Connection may be made through a laptop using an appropriate card or via a mobile phone handset using a cable, infrared or ‘Bluetooth’ connection.
WiFi (802.11 standard) ‘hotspots’ are springing up in airports, railway stations, hotels, coffee shops etc. where local wireless network connections are available if you have a wireless card in your laptop and a subscription to the relevant service.
Satellite could bring always-on downloads or broadcast Internet channels
A mass market satellite connection means having a dish on the exterior of the building for download and a normal telephone or some other connection for upload. Download speeds can be similar to ADSL or Cable modem but upload is limited to the dial-up speed. Two-way broadband satellite is now available across the UK but installation and running costs are relatively expensive when compared to ADSL or Cable.
The mass market is for Internet through a TV whether by satellite or other form of digital link. But home usage is likely to be different from business usage, and services may develop accordingly.
Leased lines for permanent connection with Quality of Service guarantees
This is the way corporate and specialist service or heavy user companies connect. They run servers that require high or guaranteed upload capacity, serving applications which are core or critical to their businesses. For most small businesses it is more economical to have servers co-located, or server applications hosted and possibly maintained by specialist companies. Remotely located servers can have operating systems and applications administered by you or your staff using a more economical Internet connection. An economical alternative to the traditional Leased Line could be an SDSL (Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) connection, operating at 2Mbps in each direction, although these are likely to be limited by technological limitations and commercial viability to a radius of around 3km from major city centre exchanges.
Steps/processes
Use of the Internet enabled an order of magnitude improvement in the auto insurance coverage change business process cited above. Similarly, there are a number of other technologies that help in process improvement efforts like the Internet. Here are 10 of those technologies and examples that show how they are helping Lean improvement:
1. The Internet: Web portals have enabled organizations business processes from order entry to logistics to customer service to be performed from anywhere, anytime by their employees. In some cases, these organizations are making these portals available even for their end-customers on an around-the-clock basis, making it very convenient. It used to take a week or more for an application for a new credit card to be approved or rejected by a credit card company. Now, a consumer can apply for a credit card online and get an decision in seconds. A good question to ask in any Lean process improvement effort is: "Is there a way, the Internet can increase the process cycle efficiency for this business process?"
2. Wireless Connectivity: Many property and casualty insurance companies have rolled out wireless connectivity to claims adjusters that are on the road, especially in case of catastrophic events like the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. In the absence of wireless connectivity, information about claims may be sent by paper back to a central office where someone enters the same information into a claims software system. Wireless connectivity has the potential of having the claims adjusters entering the information directly into the claims software system remotely, cutting days from the business process.
3. Automated Workflow Systems: Automated workflow systems cut down the time, work items wait in a queue for processing. Many business processes suffer from wasteful physical movement of paper from desk to desk. When a piece of paper reaches the next destination, it waits behind other work items that arrived before it. Automated workflow systems can keep the work items moving, raising alerts if work items have been waiting for too long a time, re-routing themselves to others if someone is busy, etc. They also provide visibility into exactly where the bottlenecks may be in a business process, enabling sane Lean process improvement efforts to smooth these out.
4. Scanning and Digitization: Computing and computer storage have become so inexpensive that many organizations scan and digitize most official documents that come in as paper. These may be legal documents or invoices from vendors of services, supplies, or raw material. Thereafter, it enables the circulation of these digital versions of these documents rather than wasteful movement of physical paper across the company. Digitization also enables processes to move geographically long distances effortlessly, enabling employees from geographically dispersed office locations to participate in the same workflow, for example.
5. Service-Oriented Architectures: If an organization is using the most up-to-date transportation companies to handle its shipping needs, it can initiate a delivery from it own corporate applications seamlessly. These shipping companies have made their backend software systems accessible to any organizations' software systems using service-oriented architectures (SOA). The SOA technology enables software systems in the same or disparate organizations talk to each other and exchange information automatically, without any human intervention. Many large corporations have realized enormous gains in process cycle efficiency in their supply chain business processes by allowing suppliers' and customers' software talk to their backend software systems using SOA. By enabling automatic exchange of data between organizations' computers in an electronic form, SOA eliminates wasteful and time-consuming exchange of paper and redundant entry of data in to multiple computer applications.
6. Document Management Systems: Document management systems allow an organization to execute business processes that require collaboration across geographies, and even continents. They allow two people in different cities or countries to work collaboratively on a business process by making sure the changes they make are done in an orderly fashion and nothing is lost during the collaboration. Document management systems allow the check-out of documents for editing and require checking them back in once they are done. Thus changes made by different people on the same document are not lost. In many business processes, this has the potential of eliminating waste due to motion and most importantly the quality of the collaboration involved. In the absence of such systems, more time may be expended in sending documents back and forth by e-mail and coordinating changes made to the same documents by different people.
7. Business Process Monitoring and Measurement: Lean process improvement efforts are usually highly targeted at certain steps of a business process. Pareto's principle applies to business processes also: 80 percent of the bottlenecks and improvement usually comes from 20 percent of the steps in a business process. Business process monitoring and measurement solutions may provide a good idea of where these bottlenecks are, and – more importantly – make sure that service levels needed by individual process steps are met fully so that the whole process works as required.
8. Business Process Management Systems: Business process management systems (BPMS) enable streamline and integrate different software systems that may be involved in a business process. By providing an overall framework for the business process, BPMS systems enable smooth flow of business processes across different departments, functions and backend software systems. They also provide monitoring and reports that can help a Lean process improvement effort with measurement before and after improvement efforts.
9. Business Rules Systems: Business rules systems enable the automation of wasteful manual activities in many business processes. For example, automobile insurance underwriters may have this simple business rule: "If the applicant is a male under 21 years of age and the car is a convertible, set the application apart for manual underwriting." Those cases that are not cover by this rule – or other rules which the company might institute – can automatically be approved or rejected by an automated system. The business rule system in this case enables the automation of an otherwise, wasteful and time-consuming, manual business process.
10. Online CRM Systems/Self-Service FAQ Systems: Many organizations have placed customer relationship management (CRM) systems online as part of their web site. A customer can login and create a trouble ticket online for a support or service request instead of talking to a customer support representative on the telephone. Many organizations are using self-service frequently asked questions (FAQ) sections on their web sites where customers can see if their problem has been faced by other customers, and what the solution was, in those cases. These systems enable the speed up of customer service and support processes. FAQ sections on company web sites may even eliminate service or support calls if they answered their questions or solved their service or support problem. They are convenient for end customers since they are available on the Internet, around the clock, providing even better service than when done manually by telephone.
Lean process improvement efforts have the goal of increasing process velocity and improving PCE. A number of new information technologies offer the promise of achieving these goals by their judicious and appropriate use. In some cases, these technologies have the potential of improving process velocity and efficiency by orders of magnitude. They do this by significantly cutting down waste in the form of unnecessary transportation, waiting and manual data entr
References
http://www.waco.tstc.edu/tel/tel_aas/index.php
http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c061211a.asp
Labels: Assignment#6
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