Business Brief
You are fresh out of school and have spent several months prior to graduation pursuing gainful employment. Just recently you have been offered and accepted a position as a Business Systems Analyst with a small firm that services the western Chicago suburbs with a cleaning solvent business.
The company, Krystal Kleen, provides recycled cleaning solvents for automotive and small industrial customers. This solvent is provided from a company-owned recycling facility that utilizes the customer’s spent (dirty) solvent as raw material stock.
Additionally, Krystal Kleen offers the service of pickup and handling of small quantity hazardous wastes. This handling can be a recycle process or proper disposal.
Being a young company (5 years old) with a customer base of 2000 customers (and growing fast!!) the Chief Executive/Owner and his senior management wish to introduce some computer automation to
replace the existing manual systems that are currently in place. As can be expected, the company suffers from frequent errors and delays that are inherent in manual data systems.
To address these issues you have been hired to introduce a budget-restricted answer to resolve the most critical issues first. A consulting firm, hired earlier this year, has determined that a microcomputer solution should be pursued which would produce results quickly and stay within the tight budget constraints. Later, as the company grows, a multi-microcomputer network could be introduced and/or even a larger computerized solution if deemed necessary.
From the applications software perspective, a Microsoft solution has been purchased. This means that you will be using the Microsoft “Office” suite of products to implement your solutions. This includes ACCESS for database applications.
The central office environment consists of a total of 20 staff members. This includes a Sales/Marketing structure, a Recycle/Inventory structure, and a Financial/Human Resource structure. Each one of these structures is headed by a Senior Vice-President who reports to the Chief Executive and Owner,
Bert Krystal.
You will be reporting to the Financial Senior V.P., Marlyn Dollar.
In the field, the company provides 20 sales/service representatives that operate company step vans that are utilized in the delivery of clean solvents to the customer and to return spent solvent and hazardous wastes to the recycle facility.
The normal business transaction consists of a customer calling into the sales organization to arrange for an offered service. A representative is then dispatched from the recycle facility to complete the service visit. Prior to leaving the recycle center, the van is loaded with the proper blend of solvent and proper container (drum) size for the customer exchange. Once at the customer, a sales document is completed by the rep and signed by the customer. Upon returning to the recycle facility, the sales document is returned to the central office where the sale is booked, an invoice is mailed, and the associated receivable is recorded.
Once payment is received, the appropriate accounting entries are made against the outstanding balance for the customer.
There are many Information Systems automation opportunities at Krystal Kleen. More details of your tasks will be provided with the subsequent assignments.