IT Solutions Paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

IT Solutions - Research Paper Example The engineers of the contractor firm generate hard copies of inspection requests to the consultant firm mentioning the time of inspection. The firms are working on a very large construction project, so everyday, hundreds of inspection requests are generated. The consultant firm’s manager assigns individual consultants to specific inspection requests. Lately, the consultants have been missing out the inspection requests, and because of the consequential delays of work, the contractor is incurring undue costs. Upon asking, the consultant’s representative said that they have not been receiving the inspection requests timely. It remains unresolved whether the contractor’s engineers are not generating the inspection requests on time, or the consultants are rationalizing for their laziness. Causes of the Problem The cause of this problem between the contractor firm and the consultant firm is the fact that inspection requests are generate in hard copies. It not only inc urs the contractor firm a lot of cost to generate so many inspection requests on daily basis, but is also a huge waste to manage for the consultant firm once the requests have been received. ... Effects of the Problem The effects of the current practice are substantially bad both for the contractor firm and the consultant firm. On one hand, the contractor firm is bearing a lot of direct and indirect cost of generating the inspection requests. On the other hand, the consultant firm has a huge waste to manage on daily basis. The consultant firm is also not getting the inspection requests in time, as a result of which, a blame-game has started between the consultant firm and the contractor firm, which is very bad for the relations between both the parties. In conventional practice, the contractor firms tend to maintain very good relations with the consultant firms so that the latter approves the requests of the former on time, and accordingly, the contractor firm gets paid by the client on time. As a result of this situation, both firms are losing credibility in the client’s eye, and are also ruining their relationship. Solution 1 There are several possible solutions for this problem, the most important and cost-effective amongst which is changing the inspection requests from the hard copy form to the soft copy form. The inspection requests can be generated via email. Advantages A potential advantage of changing the form of inspection requests is that there is a record for every request that has been generated. While the hard copy might get replaced or go missing any time, the soft copy can always be retrieved from the previously sent emails’ list at a later point in time. Presence of the record of every inspection request, the time and date at which it was generated, and its content make it easy for everybody to locate the source of problem. Inspection requests generated via email are delivered