Business Process Modelling $($BPM$)$ Assignment

The HELM SYSTEM CASE

Pg $37$ of Text: Experiencing MIS Kroenke, et at

MIS in Use

Helm: Soltware Making Waves

Tugboats might seem like the last place to look for innovative information techriology. But Edoc Systems Group $($www helmoperations,com$),$ a company with headquarters in Victoria, B$.$C$.,$ recognized the potential of information technology to automate busirnesi processes in this industry.

Tugboat companies are otten family businesses that have been running for more than $100$ years using paper$-$based systems. Things do not change quickly in this industry. For oxample, a Helm employee visiting an Oregon company found that the dispatch log sheet the company was currently using had been in use in the same format since $19521$ How can information technology help this indtestry?

The first step is to understand the challenges the tugbost companies face. Each company has a fleset of vessels, a set of crews that run the vessels, and a list of jobs: from various customers that need to bo done. The dispatcher is the person at the centre of the business process that matches fobs with crews and vessels it is a compllented process in which new jobs come in dally, vessels and crews have different capabilities. and customers have different pritorities. Tugboats are also expensive $($a tugboat can cost upward of $$5$ million and require thousands of dollars per diay fo run$).$ Dispatchers require years of experkence before they are ready to kalance these factors and make efficient scheduling decisions.

Paper$-$based systems worked for decades, but thoy were relabiely ineftcient and prone to error. Why? To understand this, you need a more detailed view of the process: it began with a customer order fusually vis phone or faxt? An employoo at the tug company wrote down the work that needed to be done; that description would ithen be rewritten and handed to fug captains as a job to do: dispatchers would copy it again onto the dispatch log sheet. When the fob was completed, the captains handed their log