You initially completed this post in your Computers in the Workplace discussion in Week Four. Review the instructions here and incorporate the peer and instructor feedback from the Week Four discussion in your fifth blog post.
In your initial post, you will choose a specific industry (e.g., construction, sales, healthcare, and education, etc.). Based on your current understanding of information technology, your experience with that industry, and any additional research as necessary, describe the functions of computers in your chosen industry. Explain why it is important for employees in this type of environment to be computer literate. Considering the historic trends of computing, forecast how evolutions in computer hardware, operating systems, and networking will impact your chosen industry over the next ten years.
Your initial post will be a minimum of 250 words.
Guided Response: Review several of your classmates’ posts, and respond to at least two of your peers by end of Day 7. In each response, you will assess if the functions described by your peer accurately reflect the current state of information technology and computer science. Evaluate your peer’s argument for employee computer literacy. Evaluate your peer’s forecasts and state why you agree or disagree with their predictions. Provide at least one suggestion about how they could improve the post before they post it to their Information Technology Blog in Week 4.
Jesse Neubauer
Thursday Oct 1 at 10:59am
I currently work in the banking/finance industry, so that's the one I'll be focusing on. Computers are essential to banking in modern times, as they allow for the near-immediate capture, transmission, storage, and processing of information about a customer's identity, balances, status, and profile, as well as a merchant/vendor's stats and a transaction's stats. Computers allow individuals and their information to be tied to identifying numbers like account numbers, debit card numbers, and internal-use-only numbers too. Computers allow for huge databases of information to be searched rapidly, so that a single financial institution can service millions of customers and clients simultaneously. And computer networking allows for those databases to be accessible from nearly any location- allowing the bank to build corporate offices in multiple states, branches and ATMs in most metropolitan areas, and a mobile app/website which customers can access online from anywhere. Without computers, banking would be a much more frustrating process, and not nearly as useful and functional as it is today.
It is important for an employee in the banking industry to be computer literate because they will need to use a computer for their everyday job functions! I don't think there are ANY roles in this industry that can complete their duties without using any computer technology. And if an issue with that technology were to arise, the employee would need enough digital literacy to be able to troubleshoot it to some extent.
Evolutions in computer hardware may allow for better biometric authentication, which will keep banking information more secure. It may allow for more convenient methods of accessing a customer's accounts, taking us beyond the convenience of contactless payments and into an age where no accessories are needed at all.
Evolutions in computer operating systems may allow for more comprehensive, cohesive banking which is less divided into multiple systems and departments. The current level of division can often cause a negative customer experience, and a longer training process for employees.
Evolutions in networking could allow financial institutions to expand their footprint even farther than it currently reaches, to service customers in a wider range of areas.
Alex [redacted]
Friday Oct 2 at 5:58pm
Hello Jesse!
You have a great post and it's definitely something I can relate to. I have a couple of friends that work at different banks and they tell me all the time without computers their job would be almost impossible. They also have frequent training they have to attend so that tells me when new technology challenges arise they have to be ready for them. I personally check my banking information every day through my mobile app. I had someone try to steal money from me a while back and ever since then I keep a close eye on my finances. From paying my mortgage to transferring money I do a lot online. Anything dealing with keeping banking more secure I'm totally down for.
Shauntell [redacted]
Oct 5 at 4:01am
Jesse,
The information you provided on banking is very accurate to me from a personal stand point. I bank with a couple of different institutions and not each state has them. It would be extremely hard to not have access to my accounts that are located in different states. Many years ago when I got my first bank account they did not have mobile apps, I made the mistake of banking with someone that was only in one specific area and when I moved I had to completely change banks. After that experience I started banking with someone more international. I have also found that with the use of computers it is easier to get larger loans for houses or vehicles and be able to track how much you still owe. Thank you for your information.
-Shauntell
Steven [redacted]
Thursday Oct 1 at 5:35pm
Hello class,
With our discussion on what is required I chose to talk about how computers effect the manufacturing industry considering I currently work in that field as a CNC Machinist and literally a CNC has a computer built into them to do the controls of the cutting operations, milling, drilling, tapping, and much more.
CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control which in short means the machine is ran by a computer instead of how manual machines are ran which is by constant measurements by the operator and small adjustments being done as you go which machining has been done like that for about 100 years or more example of machines like that would be drill presses, old style lathes, and etc. Now CNC's have been around since about the 50's, but weren't really put to use till the 60's and that is when computers started to really take off and at first a lot of people didn't know what a computer really was or how they worked, but now over the years almost everyone literally have basic to some advanced knowledge on how to use computers. So, now in almost any factory you'll see a CNC in their being used in operations.
The way computers effect Manufacturing is the fact that we can transmit information a lot quicker to one another through emails or instant messaging to let our bosses know if we have to get our machines fixed by setup or if we are running into issues that is effecting your measurements or rate. Another way computers effect me especially is the fact of the computer setup on the CNC's I have ran older ones such as Mazak's or Okuma's which are a pain to program and in literally every line of machine code you have to have a N in front of the line of code otherwise it won't read the line and do some damage so you really have to pay attention. Now with the newer CNC's I can literally write my program on Microsoft Word and hook the laptop up to the CNC or use a flash drive upload the program and hit cycle start and it will run the program and with each machine code line I don't have to do anything special. People currently in this industry have to be computer literate to be able to write programs on these or in Microsoft Word otherwise how could you work at a CNC shop it you don't know how a basic computer works to do all of that and at the end of the day leave notes for the next operator, put in your part count, and clocking in and out because it's all done on computers pretty much.
That's all I got folks have a good night.
Jesse Neubauer
Yesterday Oct 4 at 1:55pm
Do the functions described by Steven accurately reflect the current state of information technology and computer science: I'm not very familiar with manufacturing or CNC machines, but it seems like having instant, accurate measurements and monitoring of the status of heavy machinery would be essential, especially as the machinery gets heavier and more powerful. I wasn't entirely clear from reading your post on just how much human input is still required to run these machines, or how automated the CNC may allow them to become... It seems like our current level of technology should in fact allow them to be quite thoroughly automated indeed.
Evaluate Steven’s argument for employee computer literacy: From what I understand, CNC manufacturing seems almost to be an industry all of its own? Anyone going into that field would definitely do well to be able to use, understand, and troubleshoot the computers that control these machines. Or else they'd better go work in a more old-fashioned manufacturing plant!
Evaluate Steven’s forecasts and state why I agree or disagree with these predictions: If that photo of your CNC interface is any indication, it's looking like the computers used in this industry are rather behind the times indeed. So it's very well possible that automated email alerts could be the next steps, though I would be surprised if that's the height of innovation planned for this industry.
Provide at least one suggestion about how Steven could improve this post before posting it to the Information Technology Blog in Week 4: I would have loved to hear more about what the CNCs allow the manufacturing industry to accomplish. It also may have given us some more context if you'd included a sample of some of the programming you write in MS Word!
Kevin [redacted]
Thursday Oct 1 at 5:38pm
Pharmaceutical
I chose to use pharmaceuticals as my choice in computers in this industry because of the complications it has towards others around the world. We are known as a CDMO which is a contract manufacturing organization that only deals with contracts in making the drug. Computers are very important in this field due to the lack of communication we have with our parent company in Germany. In our company, we have a variant of older people who still struggle to understand how computers work and call in the IT group for help most of the time, but having an understanding of the simple application could be beneficial. For example, Webex is an application we use every day to connect with customers who are out of the country or state and we would discuss how their processes are going. Becoming computer illiterate would eliminate the small little task that IT would need to do and focus more on getting our operating system running better.
Seeing that the technology is only getting better, there is definitely gonna be improvements in our operating system in the company. Not only is our operating system only getting better, but networking within the company will be easier. Meaning that there will not be as many drop connections into our portals in the intranet. Our lab analytical will be able to work through their equipment without it freezing on them when running tests. Maybe in the future computer will not be needed due to AI running the systems for everyone.
Jesse Neubauer
Yesterday Oct 4 at 2:16pm
Do the functions described by Kevin accurately reflect the current state of information technology and computer science: I'm admittedly a little bit lost... How do the computers used in the pharmaceutical industry interact with the other, non-computerized components? When you say "we are known as a CDMO" I'm assuming you're referring to your employer? And the older, less-computer-literate people you're referring to are fellow employees in the same company, not customers or clients? It's a little difficult to tell whether the current state of IT and CS is accurately reflected, when I'm having trouble finding any functions described...
Evaluate Kevin’s argument for employee computer literacy: The argument here seems to be that if more of the company's employees were more computer-literate, then the company would be able to spend more of its resources on becoming more efficient, rather than on compensating for this illiteracy. To me, that seems like a pretty low-level benefit for more widespread literacy, but I don't know enough about the industry to know what else might be accomplished!
Evaluate Kevin’s forecasts and state why I agree or disagree with these predictions: It sounds like at this time, you're encountering many errors or issues that are possibly a result of the company's technological limitations. I'm willing to bet that more streamlined technology already exists, and that your company simply hasn't acquired it yet... Your very last sentence confuses me, since AI is a TYPE of computing technology, so you can't have AI running the systems without computers... Maybe you meant that human-facing user interfaces or inputs will become obsolete?
Provide at least one suggestion about how Kevin could improve this post before posting it to the Information Technology Blog in Week 4: I am the sort who always needs more context, for just about everything- in order to really understand new information, I have to first be able to connect it to something I already know! So if you could provide some more context for some of the terminology you're using, like contracts, customer processes, portals, etc... That would be very helpful for us readers who aren't very familiar with what-all is involved in the pharmaceutical industry!
No comments:
Post a Comment