Data Requirements Strategic Supply Chain Management - Essay Example

With these essential elements of the production process in the manufacturing of goods, the parts should be recorded in terms of the descriptions, brand and any other associated data. For instance, the term "bill of materials" may be used by various parts of the enterprise such as engineering, manufacturing, service and sales; although they may all have different definitions of what the bill of materials actually means. Even the basic terms "product" and "parts" may have several definitions within an enterprise.

Since a manufacturing company makes use of numerous parts, inventory will help them with communicating clearly with other departments as to which parts are still needed or which have defects and have to be replaced, etc. An effective manufacturing product data model can lead to more integrated and comprehensive product data and information by clearly showing the information requirements of the products, parts and items throughout their life cycle from engineering to manufacturing to the deployment of products at customer locations.

Relevant data which may be included in the record are the part identification number, name, and classification which may range from raw material, subassembly or finished good. Raw material is a piece used in making the product and does not need further enhancements for it to be usable. Subassembly means that the part is still composed of other parts. Finished good means that the part is completely done and processed and is ready for shipping. Product information need to indicate the product identification number, name, description, introduction date, sales discontinuation date, support discontinuation date and comments.

Bills of materials and marketing packages are also part of the data required for manufacturing process. Manufacturers frequently use the term "bill of materials" to refer to how various parts are assembled into other parts and eventually into products. An enterprise may have a need to store parts used in a MARKETING PACKAGE that are never sold as individual products.Bills of materials consist of parent product identification number, child product identification number, from date, thru date, reason, quantity used, instructions and comments.

Part composition has the same information with the bills of materials except for the classification which are engineering composition and manufacturing composition. Types of marketing offerings and types of parts that make up the marketing offerings are important and aside fro this inventory and deployment data should complete the data requirements for manufacturing process. Of course, there are actual physical items that may exist within the enterprise's inventory or that may be deployed at customer locations.

Customer service data requirements deals with customer personal data which ranges from financial information, demographics, contact information professional and educational; background. These customer data are confidential and restricted access is provided with the creation and update of these records. While such "point deployments" bring immediate process and data efficiencies to the particular