NMIMS Global Access
School for Continuing Education (NGA-SCE)
Course: IT Infrastructure Management
Internal Assignment Applicable for December 2021 Examination
Assignment Marks: 30
Instructions:
All Questions carry equal marks.
All Questions are compulsory
All answers to be explained in not more than 1000 words for question 1 and 2 and for
question 3 in not more than 500 words for each subsection. Use relevant examples,
illustrations as far as possible.
All answers to be written individually. Discussion and group work is not advisable.
Students are free to refer to any books/reference material/website/internet for
attempting their assignments, but are not allowed to copy the matter as it is from the
source of reference.
Students should write the assignment in their own words. Copying of assignments from
other students is not allowed.
Students should follow the following parameter for answering the assignment questions.
1. “In today’s competitive market place where new market entrants, low cost products
options, multiple suppliers are present. Selection of optimal IT Infrastructure plays an
important role for not only sustaining but also giving growth to the organization”,
justify the statement using suitable examples. As per your understanding for a selected
organization what is the optimal IT Infrastructure required to get an edge over
| For Theoretical Answer | |
| Assessment Parameter | Weightage |
| Introduction | 20% |
| Concepts and Application related to the question | 60% |
| Conclusion | 20% |
| For Numerical Answer | |
| Assessment Parameter | Weightage |
| Understanding and usage of the formula | 20% |
| Procedure / Steps | 50% |
| Correct Answer & Interpretation | 30% |
NMIMS Global Access
School for Continuing Education (NGA-SCE)
Course: IT Infrastructure Management
Internal Assignment Applicable for December 2021 Examination
competitors? (10 Marks)
2. Organic Valley Harvests Enterprise Efficiency
Organic Valley Family of Farms is the largest U.S. cooperative of organic farmers and
one of the nation's leading organic brands. It is a marketing and distribution cooperative
and virtual manufacturer. It owns only one butter plant and a small "cut and wrap"
cheese operation, and contracts with more than 85 fluid dairy, cheese and other plants
across the country for the majority of its manufacturing. Today, it represents more than
1,300 family farms in 34 U.S. states and Canada. Focused on keeping small and midsized farmers farming, Organic Valley produces more than 200 organic foods sold in
supermarkets, natural foods stores and food cooperatives, and as ingredients for other
organic food manufacturers nationwide.
With an annual growth rate of more than 25 percent, Organic Valley needed to
consolidate disparate systems into one enterprise solution to improve operating
efficiencies and maintain the quality of its perishable food products.
"We were doing our planning using spreadsheets and an enterprise system designed for
discrete manufacturing to handle our financials, order management and inventory,"
explains George Neill, director of IT, Organic Valley. "As our operations expanded, it
became obvious that we needed to make a major leap in our business systems."
Organic Valley chose to leverage Infor's ERP Adage as its core enterprise resource
planning solution, along with Infor SCM Advanced Planner (AP) and Infor SCM
Advanced Scheduler (AS).
"We enlisted the support of a consultant during our selection process to help identify
which functions and features were the most important," Neill explains. "We had very
specific requirements, like shelf-life management and expiration date management," he
says.
NMIMS Global Access
School for Continuing Education (NGA-SCE)
Course: IT Infrastructure Management
Internal Assignment Applicable for December 2021 Examination
Yet, the senior management team was a little apprehensive about taking on a complex
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation at the same time the company was
building and moving into new headquarters.
"I had watched many ERP implementations before, and with our project manager as the
only person with hands-on implementation experience, we understood the potential
challenges," Neill says.
One of Organic Valley's major business drivers was to improve overall utilization of its
resources by improving and automating operational planning processes. The company
gained an advantage with the new solutions because the planning and scheduling tools
are supported by the same vendor and require no code customization, which minimizes
risks during upgrades.
In addition, the company uses the SCM planning solutions to model supply planning
needs. "The Advanced Planner tool really is the golden ring for us in pulling together
supply and demand plans to optimize the manufacturing and distribution of all our
dairy, meat and produce products nationwide," according to Neill.
All in all, the Infor solution has enabled Organic Valley to be more agile on the
technical side, providing support for rapid business growth. The cooperative is even
projecting savings of $2 million per year through improved supply chain planning and
other operational efficiencies.
In the future, Organic Valley plans to move to the next version of Infor ERP Adage and
is evaluating other solutions and technologies to support its business.
In effect, Organic Valley has slowed the rate of workforce growth while sustaining
overall revenue growth, seeing an increase in sales per employee of 37 percent since
implementation.
"We enlisted the support of a consultant during our selection process to help identify
which functions and features were most important." --George Neill, Director of IT,
Organic Valley Family of Farms
NMIMS Global Access
School for Continuing Education (NGA-SCE)
Course: IT Infrastructure Management
Internal Assignment Applicable for December 2021 Examination
What are the various IT Infrastructure tools Organic Valley used for the rapid business
growth and how those tools helped in achieving the objective?
What are the various networking and security issues that may arise due to the
implementation of IT Infrastructure in the organization? Whether such types of
organizations will be benefited if are connected with server farms?
(10 Marks)
(Source- Organic Valley Harvests Enterprise Efficiency | Case Studies | Consumer
Goods Technology (CGT))
3.a. In current scenario of covid19 pandemic organizations are taking full advantages of IT
infrastructure not only for their survival but also for business growth. With the help of
suitable examples explain how organizations are using applications of cloud computing
during such unprecedented times. Explain certain security challenges in implementing
cloud computing in business organizations? (5 Marks)
3.b. Green computing is a practice of using computing devices so that they can be used
efficiently and without causing harm to human beings and environment. The purpose of
promoting green computing is to reduce the consumption of energy and to reduce
carbon emission (CO2 emission). Suggest few actionable points/ drivers for achieving
green computing and green ICT at your home, in your organization and society.
(5 Marks)
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