Systems consolidation is essential for any EA to be efficient and effective. Sys
ID: 455405 • Letter: S
Question
Systems consolidation is essential for any EA to be efficient and effective. Systems consolidation attempts to take multiple streams of information from multiple systems and consolidate that information in one area.
1. Identify some advantages to incorporating systems consolidation and discuss how this can be facilitated. In addition and keeping in step with a collaborative EA, the total cost of ownership (TCO) can be a difficult measure, especially for IT personnel. The use of a TCO calculator can aid in determining the true cost of IT projects, hardware and software replacements, etc.
Explanation / Answer
TCO analysis is used to support EA acquisition and planning decisions for a wide range of assets that bring significant maintenance or operating costs across ownership life. Total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis is EAs center stage when management is faced with acquisition decisions for computing systems, vehicles, buildings, laboratory equipment, medical equipment, factory machines, and private aircraft, for instance.
TCO analysis for EAs assets is in fact a central concern in the following:
1. Obvious costs in TCO analysis
Obvious costs in TCO are the costs familiar to everyone involved during planning and vendor selection, such as:
2. Hidden costs in TCO analysis
The so-called hidden costs are the less obvious cost consequences that are easy to overlook or omit from acquisition decisions. Costs of this kind can be very large and real, nevertheless. All belong in the TCO analysis if they do indeed follow from the decision to own something and they are material (large enough to matter). "Hidden" costs may include:
Acquisition costs: the costs of identifying, selecting, ordering, receiving, inventorying, or paying for something.
Upgrade / Enhancement / Refurbishing costs.
Set up / Deployment costs: costs of configuring space, transporting, installing, setting up, integrating with other assets, outside services.
Operating costs: for example, human (operator) labor, or energy/fuel costs.
Change management: costs: for example, costs of user orientation, user training, workflow/process change design and implementation.
Infrastructure support costs: for example, costs brought by the acquisition for heating/cooling, lighting, or IT support.
Environmental impact costs: for example, costs of waste disposal/clean up, or pollution control, or the costs of environmental impact compliance reporting.
Insurance costs.
TCO should consider calculable financial numbers such as Return on Investment (ROI), NPV, IRR, and Payback Period, TCO should also consider difficult-to-measure intangibles such as customer satisfaction, increased knowledge, and the organization's agility to compete.
This is usually the purchase cost and other related initial costs such as:
• pilot / development
• initial licensing
• legal costs
• packaging and delivery
• deployment, installation and testing.
Predictive maintenance techniques help to determine the condition of EAs in-service equipment in order to predict when maintenance should be performed. The intervals between predictive maintenance are settled on by the operational condition of the equipment. Operational condition is usually determined by non-intrusive testing such as vibration analysis, infrared scanning, and ultrasonic scanning.
These are the costs incurred when getting new software into production.
Software. Off-the-shelf software usually has an up-front software cost plus user licenses. Remember to include any finance charges.
Hardware. The cost of servers and storage to run the software and other costs like backup and disaster recovery. Does not apply to cloud software.
Implementation. The cost of setting up, configuring and testing software so it can be used in production. Applies to all software, although with custom software the configuration is usually part of development. Also includes the costs of setting up things like backups, disaster recovery, etc.
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