ELIZABETH GEORGE

ASSIGNMENT #5
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ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE LTD

INTRODUCTION
Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd.(RCCL) is a cruise line brand founded
in 1969 by Edwin W.Stephan based in Miami, Florida in the United
States of America. As of May 2012, with 21 ships in service, it
controls a 17 percent share of the world cruise market.
By 2003,RCCL was the number two company in the industry .RCCL
sailed mainly in Caribbean but also across the globe toward destination
that include Alaska, Bermuda, Canada, Hawaii, Mexico etc. RCCL
ships operated through two brands: Royal Caribbean international and
celebrity cruises.
RCCL faced many challenges in the area IT development, Customer
experience ,supply chain management.







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WORKSYSTEM SNAPSHOT
Customers Products & Services
Cruise passengers
Cruise Employees and
management teams.
Travel agents
On shore Suppliers.
Local tour guide.

Online Reservation System.
Electronic cruise Card(ID card)
Silverwhere program
Internet Cafes.
Embarkation and Debarkation
techniques
Shore excursion booking
System.


Work Practices
Cruise Passengers can book tickets using online reservation system
or call center.
Passengers receive a confirmation number.
Passengers go through embarkation process before getting on the
ship.
Cruise management use Silverwhere program for allocate dinner
seating of RCCL passengers (It mainly depends on customer
preference)
When passenger get on ship RCCL offers options like Shore
excursion booking system
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Resources are allocated from onshore to ship using supply chain
managements
Disembarkation process starts one day before the journey finish.
Participants Information Technologies
Planning
Committee
Cruise
management
team.
Immigration and
Natural Service
Local tour
operator.
On shore
purchasing
agents
Suppliers

Pricing,itinera
ries,types of
rooms,faciliti
es,amenities.
Embarkaation
and
debarkation
forms
Purchase
Order
Accounting
and Financial
documents.
Online
Reservation
websites and
call centers.
Human
resource
system(licensin
g ,training
employees)
Supply chain
management(e
g:JDE)
AMOS(inform
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ASSIGNMENT #5
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Stock Keeping
Units(SKU)
IT team(eg:IBM
global service)

ation system
specially
designed for
ship
maintainance)
NIKU(time
management
process to
provide better
control over IT
efficiency and
productivity)
Data centre
Web Servers
Movie theaters
Ice skating
rinks
Internet cafes
Disaster
recovery
management .



ELIZABETH GEORGE
ASSIGNMENT #5
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SYSTEM AND PROBLEMS
SP1-Identify the work system that is being analysed.
The work system being analysed is operations of Royal Caribbean
Cruises Ltd(RCCL) ,a cruise ship designed for pleasure cruises
founded in 1969 . It operated through two brands:Royal Carribbean
International and Celebrity Cruises.After a heavy growth decade
RCCL faced many challenges .
SP2-Identify the problems or opportunities related to this work system.
In 2002 and 2003 many factors forced the cruise companies to
cut their prices drastically.
High cost associated with reservation and travel.
Supply chain issues as a result of several factors like variety,
logistics and connectivity
Challenges faced by IT at Royal Caribbean.

SP3-Identify the factors that contribute to the problem or oppurtunities
The September 11 attacks deeply impacted the global travel
industry.To entice to travel lines were forced to slash ticket
prices.
The combination of heightened geo political uncertainities,a
weakening economy ,terrorism ,the earlier Norwalk virus and
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increased capacity(created by new ships coming online) put
downward pressure on prices.
The rise of fuel price .
Occurrence of uncertainity due to last minute booking .

SP4-Identify the constraints that limit the feasible range of
recommendation
Reducing cost
Customer Requirements
Accounting regulations
External issues










ELIZABETH GEORGE
ASSIGNMENT #5
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ANALYSIS AND POSSIBILITIES
AP1:Who are the customers and what are their concerns related to
work system?
Cruise passengers They can experience a better cruising and vacation
experience
Travel agents,local tour operator,on shore suppliers-They get
commission for the work they have done.

AP2:How good are the product and services related to the
worksystem?
Online reservation system with direct online access to its
international inventory of 29000 travel agents helps the
customer to book their tickets.
Silverwhere program helps to allocate dinner seats for RCCL
guest on cruise ship considering the criteria such as
age,nationality, sex, language, group needs and group
preferences.
Internet Cafes, give Internet access on the ship to the cruise
passengers.
Debark card save times during at the end of journey.
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Shore-excursion booking system link the passenger to a local
tour guide used to be done manually after passenger got on the
ship with additional charges.
AP3:How good are the work practices inside work system.
The work practices inside the work system is going well and meeting
the needs of passengers up to a level. RCCL management is trying to
bring new innovative ideas. However this work system is facing some
challenges in the area of expenditure level, development of reservation
system, supply chain management, IT development, and employee
management.
AP4:How well are the roles, knowledge and interest of work system
participants matched to work system design and goals?
Planning committee and management team is responsible for the
ongoing operation of RCCL and development of new methods.
Passengers data is verified by the immigration officials before the
journey.
IT team like IBM Business Services work with both shore side and
ships organizations on their system development and technology needs.




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AP5:How might better information and knowledge help?
The information posted on the website helps the customer to get a
preliminary information about cruises from pricing,itineraries,types of
rooms,facilities,aminities.
Embarkation and debarkation form help to identify a passenger .
Purchase order,Accounting and other financial documents helps to
calculate the revenue.
AP6:How might better technology help?
Supply chain management would give RCCL greater control of
shipboard inventory, food production control, usage and waste control
and supplier pricing leverage.
AMOS ,the information system is developed for ship maintenance
range from galley equipment's to engines, electrical system, valves and
even consumable items such as paint and chlorine
The introduction of Leapfrogs IT project made improvement in the
areas like supply chain, employee system and customer .
AP7:How well does the work system fit the surrounding environment?
The environment is highly competitive and facing many challenges
.RCCL management try to conquer the issues they are facing by
enhancing the good customer experience, Cost reduction, Taking
control of supply chain management, Innovating new methods,
Enhancing IT at Royal Caribbean.
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AP8:How well does the work system use the available infrastructure?
The work system makes best use of technical and human infrastructure.
The technical infrastructure include IT operation and the
implementation of new projects like Leapfrog IT projects focus on
supply chain, employee management systems and customers.

AP9:How appropriate the work systems strategy?
In order to increase work systems efficiency a new strategy has been
introduced in the revised version of work system.
RCCL set a five year technology strategy for fleet the
development of fully reduntant systems where an authorized
user could access data anytime anywhere.
Directory servers would be added and major focus on the
security would take place as a resut of the explotion of online
systems.


AP10:How well does the work system operate as a whole and in
relation to other work system.
As a whole this work system is operating good and trying to create an
infrastructure that is flexible to dynamic customer requirements
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,provide common core services,and focus on centralization where it
meets customer and business requirements.

RECOMMENDATION
RCCL was the number two company in the industry. But RCCL is
facing pressure from competitors .Its biggest competitor was
Sovereign of the seas a very first mega ship of modern era. RCCL
came up with new innovative methods to keep in track. It succeeds. So
RCCL management should always focus on bringing up new
innovative methods in IT, customer, service etc.