By: Chris Baswell – Team Member

Last spring, the MIS program at the University of Alabama partnered with Alfa Insurance on a year-long project to provide Alfa with the necessary systems for compliance with recent Medicare legislation. The new rules, found in Section 111 of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007, mandate that all insurance providers report to Medicare their payouts to Medicare-eligible beneficiaries.  This will ensure that individuals do not receive payment for their medical expenses from both a private insurer and Medicare. The deadline for compliance is Q2 2010. Failure to comply will result in fines of $1000 per claim/per day. At that rate, the cost to Alfa could well exceed an estimated $40MM annually.

The project required the UA teams to research the law, develop an understanding of the requirements and design, build and implement a solution for gathering and reporting the requisite information.  Thanks to the efforts of the Spring team, Alfa adjusters now have a web application that stores the required data in a database.  Our team has now begun work on phase two of the project.  The main focus of the team this semester will revolve around designing and building the means of compiling and formatting the data and implementing the process for transmitting that data to Medicare on a quarterly basis.

Additionally, we will be adding print functionality and enhanced search capabilities to the current web application.  The purpose of this is to improve the visibility of the data and to integrate these new requirements into Alfa’s existing business processes as neatly as possible.  The additional search parameters will allow users to review and update claims more easily.  The ability to print the claims will ensure that the data is portable and accessible to all users of the system.

This project represents a unique opportunity for University of Alabama MIS students to gain crucial work experience while providing real value to a business that serves over a million customers. For more information about the UA MIS program and to read about the other exciting endeavors our students are undertaking, visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

Alfa Insurance is a home, auto and life insurance provider with main operations in the Southeastern states of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.  Alfa was founded in 1946 and has since grown to become one of the area’s leading insurance companies.  Widely known for superior customer service, Alfa has gained an A++ rating for property, casualty and life coverage.  The company also ranks among the Forbes top 200 Best Small Companies in America.  As a result of its success, Alfa now serves over a million customers.

The UA team consists of project manager Jarrod Stanley and team members Chris Baswell, Brian Screws and Amanda Wilson.  The faculty sponsor is Shane Givens.

The Lowe’s team is gaining experience with high levels of constraints this semester. The Lowe’s team is improving Lowe’s IT Operations contract labor invoice approval process using Microsoft SharePoint. Due to personnel and training concerns, we are constricted to using out-of-the-box functionality within SharePoint. The goals in using SharePoint are to reduce current process inefficiencies, hold a central repository of all contract labor invoices, and develop an extensible system for the future. Lowe’s is currently in the process of increasing their ability to support SharePoint as a business tool instead of a document library. This semester’s team is helping pilot the use of SharePoint as a process improvement tool.

Our constraints mainly include not being able to use SharePoint helper products like SharePoint designer, unable to create custom workflows or code, as well as connect to any external databases. Over the past few months, the Lowe’s team has not only worked within these constraints, but also documented specific process improvements that can be made once Lowe’s IT support for SharePoint increases. It has proven to be very beneficial to each of our team member’s technical development to drive into some of the features included within SharePoint instead of relying on customized code. SharePoint Designer, custom code, and 3rd-party products may seem as the best option, but after gathering our requirements, the team has come to the conclusion that we can meet most requirements and still bring value to Lowe’s.

The team’s plan is to provide a functioning system to Lowe’s that is readily extensible as well provide documentation on where more value could be added to the system once some of the constraints are lifted enterprise-wide at Lowe’s.

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

Motion Industries is an industrial part supplier located in Birmingham, Alabama. They supply parts to industries such as energy and logistics. Motion serves its customers with not only parts, but with maintenance and repair services as well. They accomplish this with 500 locations in North America.

Motion has recently started a new employee training program called the “Power of 3″.  With this, Motion wants to know which employees have taken their required courses, as well as how well they are doing in the courses. Their goal is to have a more efficient and knowledgeable sales force and employee base.

Recently, we have been designing a system to accomplish their tracking goals. We have been in discussions with Motion about our ideas to create a design that best fits their company.  As of this week, we have started designing screen mock-ups and have gone on-site to get training in their technical architecture.  We hope in the near future to finish with design and move into build in which we hope to build a limited prototype of the tracking system.

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

Last week, Protective Life visited the MIS program at the weekly AIMS meeting. Protective Life is over 100 years old and has grown through acquisitions. Many of the latest projects have been focused on assimilating these acquisitions into one process.  There are 20 US offices and one Canadian office.

The presenters, Jeremy, Allen, and Matthew, spoke about their areas and what each supports. Matthew works in Analytics. This area is primarily responsible for system maintenance. This includes everything from gathering requirements to quality assurance. This is where Protective brings together the customer demands and the process demands.  Allen spoke about the Infrastructure area. This area includes the database administrators, servers, communication (e-mail, etc.), and the networks. This group also supports all of the applications used on an employee’s desktop.  They also manage risk and security for Protective.

There is also a relatively new area in Protective’s IT group that holds many opportunities. This is Business Process Improvement. Members of BPI investigate a process and find ways to make it better with fewer or, potentially, more resources.

Protective will be aggressively recruiting to fill many full time positions, primarily in the Analytics area. There are also opportunities for internships available. If you are interested, please visit their website at http://www.protectivelife.com/ProtectiveP3.asp?ID=2.

The next AIMS meeting will be October 27. Alfa will be presenting.

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) facilitates research, enhances instruction, and supports administrative operations by providing quality leadership, services, and resources in information technology for the University of Alabama.
One of the many services that OIT provides is developing websites, using Content Management Systems (CMS), for their clients such as UA departments, organizations and professors. There is currently no standardized business process for OIT to develop and deploy of web pages. This is inefficient and causes time delays and low project intake numbers. Our team is to evaluate the current processes and recommend the business and technical changes to create a more efficient development environment.
The MIS Project Team will create a repeatable process to assist OIT in achieving its new customer-centered strategic initiative, by improving their client throughput time and their service offerings to The University of Alabama faculty, staff, and students. To achieve this, the OIT Capstone team will do the following: Analyze OIT’s current process flow and CMS; evaluate CMS options, hosting solutions, and determine future capabilities; recommend CMS solutions, business process changes, and hosting solutions and implement CMS solution, process changes, and handoff training materials.

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

Southern Company presented at AIMS on September 29.  After a coffee break with the WIT ladies, CIO Kathleen King and Assistant CIO Jennifer Tidwell, joined Jerry Moore and Scott Duncan in presenting to a full room.

About 1100 of Southern Company’s 27,000 employees are a part of the IT group. They service over 4 million customers. The mission of Southern Company’s information technology department is to provide technology leadership that powers Southern Company’s success. Southern Company includes Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Mississippi Power, Gulf Power, and the Nuclear Division.

Jerry and Scott spoke about the culture at Southern Company. Everything is done with a bit of Southern Style. This means that employees are expected to follow three principles in everything they do: Unquestionable trust, Superior Performance, and Total Commitment.

There is a wide range of projects in development at Southern Company. They are working on the much publicized Smart Grid, voice and data network convergence, an energy management system replacement, and a strategy to use social media in communication.

Southern Company has been ranked as one of the 100 Best Places in IT to work according to Computer World. There are opportunities for internships, as well as full time. In order to be considered for these, complete a profile on the company’s website. If you would like to learn more or complete a profile, please visit http://www.southerncompany.com/.

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

As a new addition to the University’s MIS Program, I wasn’t sure what I’d gotten myself into, but as classes continue I feel like this is the program for me. D. Hale’s lectures are as informative as they are entertaining as he prepares us for what lies ahead and lays the initial groundwork for a future filled with success.

We recently turned in our first project where our goal was to create a marketing plan that utilized social networking. My team chose to focus on Hibbett Sports with Facebook as the marketing platform.

We conducted research to understand what users of Facebook were looking for and what would entice them to follow a company on Facebook. Based on our results, we developed a Facebook Page to maximize Hibbett’s exposure and profitability. We included coupons, entertaining videos (starring our team), and links to Hibbett’s website to achieve our goal of creating a marketing tool that allowed easier and quicker interaction with customers, and introduced a less expensive medium for advertising directly to customers.

Through this experience, I have gained important information and experience that I hope will make the next project easier. The project has helped me realize the importance of WCAs, value chains, and teamwork, along with teaching me the best methods for creating the project and building relationships and trust within a team. And with that, bring on the next one, D. Hale!

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

This week the Walmart RPAS team (Team Awesome) is preparing for the Executive Forum. We are busy revising our poster and preparing for the poster sessions on Friday. We are excited about the opportunity to explain the value that our project will provide to Walmart associates. We look forward to the questions and feedback we will receive from the Executives. We also look forward to learning all we can from them at the Forum Panel on Thursday.

Our team is finishing up the Analyze Phase and is moving into the Design Phase of our project. We have been researching different .NET languages and scripting languages to use. We decided to use C# and Korn shell because they met all of our needs and would provide the greatest learning opportunity for our team. Each team member chose a topic for these languages and presented to the rest of the team. The goal was to increase our comfort level presenting, as well as, to teach each other our topic. It was very interesting and a huge benefit to our team. We hope to finish the Design Phase next week and then move into Build.

And for those that think the Capstone Experience is all work and no play… Walmart Team Awesome and Walmart Dream Team challenged each other in bowling! Both teams cut short our work sessions and headed out to the bowling alley for a good time and friendly competition. The scores aren’t important (but Team Awesome did win all 3 games.) What matters is that everyone had a good time and enjoyed the break!

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

With the largest private fleet in the United States, Walmart drivers drive over 800 million miles annually to supply their over 4,000 US stores and over 140 distribution centers. After a load has been dropped off at a store, about 25% of the time, drivers drive with an empty trailer back to a distribution center. Given that transportation is a necessary cost to run their business, Walmart has identified an opportunity to generate revenue by decreasing the occurrence of driving with an empty trailer.

This semester, my capstone team is tasked with developing a web application that the Walmart Transportation Division will use to market the empty space on their trucks. In order to complete this project our team is gathering requirements by communicating with various employees of the Walmart Backhaul Strategy Department, analyzing the current state of the carrier service market, and building the application. After implementation, our web application will effectively market and greatly increase the visibility of the backhaul service Walmart offers.

The Walmart Fleet Team is comprised of the project manager Staci Cochran, and team members: Cory Clark, J.P. Lovoy, Matt Parker, and Will Saxon.

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis

BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama (BCBSAL) is the largest healthcare provider in the state of Alabama. The company has over 3.6 million customers who represent over 30,000 different companies and pay billions in dental and healthcare benefits every year.

Like any competitive company, BCBSAL is always looking for ways to improve the organization. The most recent opportunity for improvement was found when project champion and CIO, Scott McGlaun, recognized a need to change the IT strategy.

The new strategy is called, “Blue Plan-IT” and will implement 5 new initiatives into the IT department over the next three years. Our role as the Capstone Experience team analysts is to provide a centralized view of IT performance and visibility as part of the new Metric Driven Management initiative.

We plan to do this by leveraging existing capabilities to create a Balanced IT Scorecard (BITS), which is the name of the project. BITS will graphically display specific high impact Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which the IT leadership team at BCBSAL has already identified and prioritized.

This week, we will be working to learn the technical back-end of our proposed solution PerformancePoint, by Microsoft.

The University of Alabama MIS program allows students to work on real projects that provide real value to real companies. Students learn to leverage people, processes and technology to solve problems and meet the challenges of today’s businesses head-on. For more information, call 205-348-5525 or visit http://cba.ua.edu/mis