please answer the question 1 How do SCM systems improve supply chain visibility?
ID: 3578304 • Letter: P
Question
please answer the question
1 How do SCM systems improve supply chain visibility? You should include the structure and components of a supply chain, the different flows along the supply chain, and problems along the supply chain in your answer. Evaluate how a company like Walmart, known for their SCM systems, is so successful.
2. Auditing has been mentioned throughout the textbook, particularly regarding the federal mandates imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley. How can technology help improve the auditing process?
Explanation / Answer
Supply chain management (SCM) is a broadened management focus that considers the combined impact of all the companies involved in the production of goods and services, from suppliers to manufacturers to wholesalers to retailers to final consumers and beyond to disposal and recycling. This approach to managing production and logistics networks assumes all companies involved in the process of delivering goods to consumers are part of a network, pipeline, or supply chain. It encompasses everything required to satisfy customers and includes determining which products they will buy, how to produce them, and how to deliver them. The supply chain philosophy ensures that customers receive the right products at the right time at an acceptable price and at the desired location.
Increasing competition, complexity, and geographical scope in the business world have led to this broadened scope and continuing improvements in the capabilities of the personal computer have made the optimization of supply chain performance possible. Electronic mail and the Internet have revolutionized communication and data exchange, facilitating the necessary flow of information between the companies in the supply chain.
Companies that practice supply chain management report significant cost and cycle time reductions. For example, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced increases in inventory turns, decreases in out-of-stock occurrences, and a replenishment cycle that has moved from weeks to days to hours.
A fundamental premise of supply chain management is to view the network of facilities, processes, and people that procure raw materials, transform them into products, and ultimately distribute them to the customer as an integrated chain, rather than a group of separate, but somewhat interrelated, tasks. The importance of this integration cannot be overstated because the links of the chain are the key to achieving the goal. Every company has a supply chain, but not every company manages their supply chain for strategic advantage.
While easy to understand in theory, the chain management becomes more complex the larger the company and its range of products, and the more international the locations of its suppliers, customers, and distribution facilities. Supply chain management is also complex because companies may be part of several pipelines at the same time. A manufacturer of synthetic rubber, for example, can at the same time be part of the supply chains for tires, mechanical goods, industrial products, shoe materials and footwear, aircraft parts, and rubberized textiles
The role of information technology (IT) control and audit has become a critical mechanism for ensuring the integrity of information systems (IS) and the reporting of organization finances to avoid and hopefully prevent future financial fiascos such as Enron and WorldCom. Global economies are more interdependent than ever and geopolitical risks impact everyone. Electronic infrastructure and commerce are integrated in business processes around the globe. The need to control and audit IT has never been greater.
Initially, IT auditing (formerly called electronic data processing (EDP), computer information systems (CIS), and IS auditing) evolved as an extension of traditional auditing. At that time, the need for an IT audit function came from several directions
The early components of IT auditing were drawn from several areas. First, traditional auditing contributes knowledge of internal control practices and the overall control philosophy. Another contributor was IS management, which provides methodologies necessary to achieve successful design and implementation of systems. The field of behavioral science provided such questions and analysis to when and why IS are likely to fail because of people problems. Finally, the field of computer science contributes knowledge about control concepts, discipline, theory, and the formal models that underlie hardware and software design as a basis for maintaining data validity, reliability, and integrity.
IT auditing is an integral part of the audit function because it supports the auditor's judgment on the quality of the information processed by computer systems. Initially, auditors with IT audit skills are viewed as the technological resource for the audit staff. The audit staff often looked to them for technical assistance. As you will see in this textbook, there are many types of audit needs within IT auditing, such as organizational IT audits (management control over IT), technical IT audits (infrastructure, data centers, data communication), application IT audit (business/financial/operational), development/implementation IT audits (specification/ requirements, design, development, and post-implementation phases), and compliance IT audits involving national or international standards. The IT auditor's role has evolved to provide assurance that adequate and appropriate controls are in place. Of course, the responsibility for ensuring that adequate internal controls are in place rests with the management. The audit's primary role, except in areas of management advisory services, is to provide a statement of assurance as to whether adequate and reliable internal controls are in place and are operating in an efficient and effective manner. Therefore, whereas management is to ensure, auditors are to assure.
Today, IT auditing is a profession with conduct, aims, and qualities that are characterized by worldwide technical standards, an ethical set of rules (Information Systems Audit and Control Association [ISACA] Code of Ethics), and a professional certification program (Certified Information Systems Auditor [CISA]). It requires specialized knowledge and practicable ability, and often long and intensive academic preparation. Often, where academic programs were unavailable, significant in-house training and professional development had to be expended by employers. Most accounting, auditing, and IT professional societies believe that improvements in research and education will definitely provide an IT auditor with better theoretical and empirical knowledge base to the IT audit function. They feel that emphasis should be placed on education obtained at the university level.
The breadth and depth of knowledge required to audit IT systems are extensive. For example, IT auditing involves the
The auditing of complex technologies and communications protocols involves the Internet, intranet, extranet, electronic data interchange, client servers, local and wide area networks, data communications, telecommunications, wireless technology, and integrated voice/data/video systems.
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