The case study scenario. Note that this is a hypothetical case study. United Milk Commodities (UMC) O Business History United Milk Commodities Pty. Ltd. (UMC) was founded in 1963 in Berwick, Victoria by Mr. Geoff Frost, a former East Gippsland farmer. From humble beginnings as a milk processor for the local dairy farmers, the company has grown into a multi-million dollar mixed-product firm with a strong penetration into the local market, and a developing export business. The company's products consist of a large range of milk products (e.g. whole milk, reduced fat milk, skinny milk, flavoured milk etc.) and a range of specialised milk products including, A2 milk, UHT milk, Lactose free milk, and Organic milk. Every morning, a fleet of stainless steel UMC tanker trucks leaves the factory to collect 50,000 litres of whole milk from selected dairy farms in the area. When the tankers return the milk is pasteurised and homogenised after which it is either packaged or subject to further processing to become skinny milk, flavoured milk, A2 milk, and other products. A second fleet of refrigerated delivery trucks then transports the finished products to the company's major distributors. Current Business Challenges To remain competitive in this sector, the new general manager and the other decision-makers of the company are wanting a system that can respond more effectively to the complexities of the changing market place. But due to its reluctance to innovate in previous years, much of the business remains without any data network connectivity and relies on individual standalone systems that do not share data with other departments. Because of this, the majority of exchanges between departments occur over the phone or informally via email, with the formal paper work following the request 1 or 2 days later. With the urban development of new housing estates expanding further out into the outer fringes of the metropolitan area, UMC was fortunately placed to serve some of these new estates. Once such estate is Serenity Meadows estate which has been growing steadily since 2015. This estate is currently not served by any major supermarket chain yet, but it does have four (4) convenience stores that provide the area with general daily necessities (milk, bread and some other products). Three (3) out of the four (4) stores also provide fuel.
Overview of the local stores: WOOUVOWITHS Petrol Save WOOLWORTHS Plus 99.9 gettyimages 103.9 101.9 Woolworths Petrol: A combination of a cut down version of the major supermarket with a service station. Woolworths Petrol offers a very good level of choice and price options for most of its grocery options, they also offer recharging options for most mobile and internet plans. Due to its location (positioned on the main junction point between the estate entry and the freeway to the city) the Woolworths Petrol is very popular with car commuters and trades people. Trading hours 6am-10pm. Shell: This Shell service station is seen by the locals as mainly a fuelling point. The level of choice of grocery products is