FYC's administration and operations departments could benefit greatly from computerization of manual processes revamped information systems. In finance and accounting, which is the most computerized department at FYC, standalone PC-based packages are used for general ledger, account reconciliation, invoicing and payments, and the like. In manufacturing, inventories, budgets, and product manual rollout time is either manually calculated or determined using Excel spreadsheets. The corporate website is primarily an e-catalogue, with no interactive ordering capability. New technologies exist that could improve all of these areas and bring them out of a manual environment.
Rather than a series of standalone applications on individual PCs, FYC could roll all of its business processes into one larger system accessible across the company. This would provide greater data visibility, and manual applications could be computerized and achieved far more efficiently. Networked applications would allow data to flow between as well as within departments, thus reducing the need to provide data manually and also reducing the likelihood of errors. In IT, manual calculations and those done in Excel could be transferred to project management software that automatically calculates rollout times, budgets, and inventories can be accomplished using RFID technology. Inventory can be tagged with RFID tags that are scanned by special scanners, and "RFID technology allows users to automatically track inventory throughout an entire supply chain," although RFID systems "typically do not require line of sight or manual scanning as do most bar code-based systems, and offer significant improvement over the labor and logistical challenges of manual systems" (Intermec, 2008). RFID is far more efficient than bar coding and manual scanning systems, as well.
The U.S. Navy reduced its inventory time by 98% using RFID technology (Intermec, 2
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