Exam 11: The Conversion Business Process

What kind of duality relationship exists in the conversion business process?

Which of the following questions could be answered by examining a Linkage relationship in the conversion cycle for a cookie manufacturer?

Move tickets often document material issuance events.

For the following part of a value chain including the conversion cycle, what must be included inside the conversion cycle circle to correspond to the outgoing arrow?

Radio frequency ID tags (RFIDs) may be attached to almost any operating asset or inventory item. Each tag emits a unique signal via radio frequencies, allowing specific items to be tracked electronically as they move from one location to another. Two soup manufacturers, Stout & Chunky and Tureen Filler, produce many different kinds of soup. If Stout & Chunky tags each can of soup produced with RFIDs and Tureen Filler doesn't use any RFIDs, how are the two soup manufacturers' conceptual conversion cycle business process level models likely to differ?

A business process level model of an enterprise's conversion cycle usually includes multiple economic decrement event entities.

Which of the following represents a valid "Linkage" relationship in an enterprise conversion cycle

Which of the following resources is most likely to participate in a conversion cycle Consume relationship for a cake manufacturer?

You have a conceptual model for the relationship between Production Run and Employee in the conversion cycle as follows. How should this relationship be implemented in relational table format?

What commitment events typically exist in the conversion process, and to what do they commit?

Bentley Balloons is an enterprise that specializes in providing helium filled balloons for customers' special occasions. They only sell balloons in large quantities; for example they provide balloons to large corporations who are having celebrations, or to department stores that want to advertise a special sale with the help of some balloons (they even have some balloons that say "Clearance Sale" on them); or to circuses or carnivals that intend to re-sell the balloons. Bentley acquires the balloons, or helium tanks, ribbons, and weights in bulk from various suppliers. Bentley's inventory clerks identify the need for those items and request the purchasing department to get them, and often the inventory clerks identify a particular vendor from whom they want purchasing to place the order (this does not obligate the purchasing department to do so, but they will need to track the information). Some requisitions are rejected by purchasing agents and are never filled. Others are approved and purchase orders are prepared and sent to vendors for the requested goods. Some purchase orders are rejected by vendors and are never filled. Others are accepted and the goods are sent by the vendors and received by Bentley's receiving clerks. Once goods are received, one of Bentley's accounting clerks issues an electronic payment to the corresponding vendor from one of its checking accounts. To meet demand, Bentley's production supervisors perform the scheduling of production jobs, the scheduling consists of ordering production (documented by production orders) and requisitioning materials (documented by materials requisitions). No equipment is needed, when new helium tanks are delivered by vendors, they take back the empty helium tanks. Production supervisors receive materials into production and oversee the production employees who perform the work in the production jobs. Bentley sees no need to track specific labor operations with respect to the production of the helium-filled balloons, as it is a very simple process. On the next page is a cycle-level REA diagram that is intended to represent the materials acquisition and conversion (manufacturing) cycles. Your task is to identify errors in this diagram. The types of errors you should consider include missing entities, missing relationships, extra entities, and extra relationships (i.e., entities or relationships that are either nonsense or don't belong to the represented cycles). List the errors on the following page. Do NOT worry about cardinalities or attributes for this problem! REA model for Bentley's Balloons List the errors you identified from Bentley Balloons' materials acquisition and conversion cycle model below. The number of blanks available does not correspond to the number of actual errors. Use only as many as you need to use, and add blanks if necessary. 1. ________________________________________________________________ 2. ________________________________________________________________ 3. ________________________________________________________________ 4. ________________________________________________________________ 5. ________________________________________________________________ 6. ________________________________________________________________ 7. ________________________________________________________________ 8. ________________________________________________________________ 9. ________________________________________________________________ 10. ________________________________________________________________ 11. ________________________________________________________________ 12. ________________________________________________________________ 13. ________________________________________________________________ 14. ________________________________________________________________ 15. ________________________________________________________________ 16. ________________________________________________________________ 17. ________________________________________________________________ 18. ________________________________________________________________ 19. ________________________________________________________________ 20. ________________________________________________________________ 21. ________________________________________________________________ 22. ________________________________________________________________ 23. ________________________________________________________________ 24. ________________________________________________________________ 25. ________________________________________________________________ 26. ________________________________________________________________ 27. ________________________________________________________________ 28. ________________________________________________________________

The Conversion cycle is centered on a Transfer duality relationship.

To answer the question of how long it took to accomplish a specific type of labor in a labor operation, one should focus on the Fulfillment relationship in the conversion cycle.

Given the following narrative description for Seminole Computer Experts (SCE): a. Create a business process level REA model in either grammar or diagram format, for the following business processes. Be sure to include all relevant entities, relationships, attributes, and cardinalities (minimum and maximum). b. Convert your business process level model into a set of minimal relational database tables. Be sure to identify primary and foreign keys in the relational tables. Seminole Computer Experts (SCE) is an enterprise that buys used computers for low prices, restores the computers, and then sells them at high prices. Each individual computer is assigned a unique identification number, and is categorized into a certain type (e.g. Notebook Pentium II, Notebook Pentium III, Desktop Pentium II, and so forth). Categories can be entered into the database before any computers in the categories are actually purchased. The unrestored computers are purchased from wholesalers as well as from individuals. One of SCE's purchasing agents submits a bid to the supplier that has listed a given computer (or computers) for sale. These unrestored computers are assigned unique identification numbers and are entered into the database upon making the bid. Sometimes it may be weeks before SCE is notified that its bid has been accepted or rejected. If the bid is accepted, one of SCE's inventory clerks will receive the item(s). Multiple bids accepted by the same supplier may be consolidated into one purchase. Bids are accepted in their entirety or not at all. For example, if SCE's bid on three different computers is accepted, SCE will receive all three of those items on the resulting purchase. If the supplier only accepts the bid as two of the three computers, that is considered a rejection of the bid. SCE may then submit a new bid that includes the two computers at the prices the supplier found acceptable. Slightly less than half of all SCE's bids are accepted. Suppliers and employees can be entered into the database before any transactions involving them occur. SCE only purchases computers that need some work done on them, because that allows SCE to significantly increase their value by restoring them. Therefore when a computer is purchased, it is similar to raw material, although it is called unrestored computer inventory. When one or more restoration employees are available to begin restoring a computer, an inventory clerk issues the unrestored computer to a restoration job (and it never goes back into unrestored inventory). Each issuance and each job involve just one computer. The restoration of the computer is assigned a unique job number, and the start date and completion dates are recorded. Although SCE wants to keep track of each employee's position, SCE only wants to include one employee table in its database. SCE tracks which employees participate in each restoration job and also tracks what types of labor are used up; however, SCE does not track details of the specific labor operations that use up the labor. For each restoration job, one specific restoration employee serves as the restoration supervisor. The supervisor designation is not a permanent employee position; instead, any given employee may serve as the supervisor on one job and may serve as a subordinate on another restoration job. Each completed restoration job results in a computer that becomes part of "restored computer inventory." In very rare instances, it is possible for the same computer to be bid on and purchased more than once. For example, SCE could buy a computer, sell it, and then a few months later buy it back again. However, SCE only buys computers that have needs for new restorations. Therefore, if SCE bids on and/or purchases the same computer again, the computer is assigned a different ID number than what it was assigned the previous time. SCE never returns computers to suppliers. When payment is due for a purchase, SCE's cashier issues one check for payment in full for the item(s) on that purchase. Sometimes if multiple purchases have been made from the same supplier within a short period of time, SCE will pay for those purchases with just one check. One of SCE's managers is required to authorize all bids greater than $5,000 and is also required to sign all checks (including checks written for expenditures other than purchases of unrestored computers). Most of SCE's checks are written for purchases of unrestored computers. SCE needs to keep track of the managers' participation in these events as well as the participation of other employees in these events. The following attributes are of interest to SCE and must be included in your solution. You may not add any attributes. You may abbreviate the attributes using the abbreviations given in bold in parentheses next to the attributes in the list.

The resource typically made available to the conversion process by the human resources process is