Organizational Background

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Otis Elevator, a multi-national corporation headquartered in Connecticut participated in the study. This research was conducted at their Pacific Area of Operations Headquarters (PAO-HQ) in Singapore. Otis Elevator, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, was founded in 1853. It is currently the world's largest manufacturer of elevators, moving walkways and other horizontal transportation systems. Their products are offered in more than 200 countries worldwide, with over 77% of sales occurring outside of the U.S. Manufacturing facilities are located in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The operations are regionalized into seven areas, with the Asia Pacific Area covering China, Korea, all Southeast Asian countries, north Asian countries, India, Australia, and New Zealand (Otis Fact Sheet, 2001).

At the time of the study, the PAO-HQ offices were located on two floors in a modern high-rise office building in downtown Singapore-it has since been relocated to Hong Kong. A separate marketing office responsible for local sales was located several miles away. PAO-HQ was responsible for sales, service and manufacturing operations spread out over 18 countries in their region. The headquarters office was divided into the traditional functional areas of Marketing, Operations, Quality Control, Finance, Engineering, Training, and HR. The MIS group reported to the Finance director. PAO-HQ employed approximately 100 people, 85 with a personal computer on the LAN. Internet connections were available, but were rarely used. The PCs ran either DOS 3.1 or Windows 95 with standard Windows office applications. The majority of the users used only MS office applications (Excel, Powerpoint, Word) and email. Customized software was in use for specialized functions (e.g., an Otis-wide financial reporting system, an Otis-wide internal management reporting system and a PAO-HQ developed engineering support system), with the relevant employees using those applications.

The PAO-HQ MIS group comprised five employees, all co-located with the other HQ personnel in the same office building. Two employees were directly responsible for LAN administration and end user support at PAO-HQ. The remaining employees supported infrastructure development, maintenance and training for the 18 country locations. Request for support came in over the telephone or email, and were logged daily. The majority of support calls were resolved by the second day either in person or over the phone by the MIS support group. A small percentage of calls were escalated to the application developer (either Microsoft or an Otis developer in Connecticut). After-hours and weekend support was provided through pager calls to the support person on duty.



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Advanced Topics in End User Computing (Vol. 3)
Advanced Topics in End User Computing, Vol. 3
ISBN: 1591402573
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 191

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