Keying Inventory Tags into MAS

Document Audit for Fontaine Trailer

Helping you to find your element since 2014








2

Qualifications

Kevin Keegan
Finance Major at UA
Intern at Cardinal Bank
7 Years work experience
Security Manager at Gallettes
Theta Chi fraternity house manager


McKenzie Messer
Accounting Major at UA
Held leadership positions in various campus organizations
Accounting and general business experience with internship
3 years of experience working as a secretary/scheduling assistant


Cole Parkey
Marketing Major at UA
Solidified Sounds Ent. Head of Ticket Sales & Promotions
Texas Real Estate License
Social Committee & Rush Committee of Phi Delta Theta fraternity


Nicholas Starnes
Finance and French Major, Minoring in Computer Science at UA
Honors College and International Honors program
Interned at La Maison de lInternationale in Grenoble, France
4 years of experience in sales from various automotive companies


Jihuan Ye
General Business Major with Specialization in Investment at UA
Intern at GF Securities in Shenzhen, China







3

Table of Contents


Executive Summary.......3


Revised Document.........4


Original Document........5


Introduction...6


Methodology.7


Findings.........8


Recommendations.....9


Post-Test.....10-11


Conclusion...12


Appendices:

Transcript of Writer Interviews (on disk)
Transcripts of Reader Interviews (on disk)
Final Document (on disk)
Final Report (on disk)




4

Executive Summary

Introduction

Fontaine Trailer is a Marmon Highway Technologies/Berkshire Hathaway company which specializes
in the production of transportation technology and flatbed trailers. After every sale or production period,
the procedure to record inventory is highly critical in maintaining and creating profits while offering fast
and efficient business to clients. The mission with this project was to improve data entry and inventory
procedures by revising an important document that describes the entry of inventory process for their
MAS inventory software system. Recommendations have been given to improve the efficiency of the
instructions on the document and a revision of the general format, length, wording, and conciseness of
said document was executed.

Recommendations

The length should be shortened to maintain reader interest
Use Fewer Fonts
Presentation and slide format is difficult to read
Be brief but comprehensive
Only use relevant information

Methodology

Interview with writer: Director of Technology, Gregory M. Powell
Pre-Test and Post-Test: Feedback was collected from employees and business students

Findings

Pre-Test: Four main issues were discovered with the original document
Categories were then tested in: Word Choice, Length, Helpfulness, and Format

Post-Test

Graph showed an improvement in all categories tested
Average positive feedback increased and average negative feedback decreased
Average reading time was shown to drastically decrease

Overall, the problems listed above were revised in the new document to create an effective and efficient
solution. All data to support this can be seen in this report.







5

Revised Document


Keying Inventory Tags into MAS



1) Navigate to:

Modules
Inventory Management
Physical Count
Count Card Entry

2) Enter first tag number and click OK
3) Enter the tag number in the Count Card Number Box and press ENTER
4) Type Part Number from tag into Item Code Box
5) Enter the quantity from tag into Quantity Counted Box
6) Enter location from tag into Count Card Comment Box
7) Press ACCEPT
8) Repeat Process from Step 4 for new tag number entries










6

Original Document






7

Introduction

Fontaine Trailer has grown to be the largest flatbed trailer manufacturer in the world. Fontaine offers the
best quality, highest resale value and the most reliable performance in the industry. Their services are
offered through nine different companies to meet any of your possible trailer needs. Their headquarters
is located in Jasper, Alabama, is a Marmon Highway Technologies/Berkshire Hathaway company.

While analyzing the instructional tutorial on how to place an order, 5th Element Consulting has provided
research and recommendations as to how Fontaine can better communicate to potential buyers.
Having completed a series of surveys and interviews, participants identified dislikes found in the
document which needed to be addressed and clarified.

The main problems identified:

Word Choice
Length
Helpfulness
Format
As a result of these problems, the company has potentially harmed its current sales as well as gaining
new perspective buyers by not using their most sufficient resources. With the auditing of this letter, 5th
Element Consulting hopes to better improve overall sales throughout the country by providing a more
updated and efficient way of purchasing items from Fontaine Trailers.























8

Methodology

Document Selection

5th Element Consulting selected a document from Fontaine Trailer that dealt with their inventory system
and data entry process. This document serves the purpose to instruct employees on how to enter data
into the MAS inventory software system.

This document was chosen in order to better improve:

Communication
Efficiency
The data entry process of inventory

With these changes, the company can hope to increase efficiency with data entry of inventory, and better
utilize the employees time with learning or using the procedure.

Writer Interview

Interviewed the author of the document, Gregory M. Powell. He stated that the original purpose was to
be just an instructional power point presentation during new employee orientation. Now his concerns are
that:

Images on original do not correspond to the updated software
The length of the document wastes paper and ink

The authors original intentions of the document were to insure that:

Audience is the group of employees who aid in all aspects of inventory
Purpose is to inform employees of how to record inventory numbers

Reader Interview

The groups selected to be interviewed were:

8 current employees of Fontaine Trailer who would use this document in their actual jobs
8 business students UA who would work in similar positions as the Fontaine employees

Survey was composed of four questions that required feedback of either positive, negative, or
indifference. During the surveys, readers were timed in order to gauge the average time to read the
documents. First, they were shown the original document and then a revised one. Categories included:

Word Choice Helpfulness
Length Format


9

Findings

Writer Interview

Based on the interview with the writer, the following findings emerged:

Intended Audience: any and all employee that dealt with the inventory process (salespeople,
accountants, managers, and buyers)
Purpose: is to inform employees of how to record inventory numbers into MAS software
Intent: the document was firstly meant to be a presentation during new employee
orientation, however when the need arise to use the information in power point
outside of this setting, it had to be printed in a 4 slide per page format.

Pre-Test

Fifteen reader interviews were conducted and percentages were recorded for the responses. Based on
these initial interviews with the readers, the following findings emerged:







0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
WORD CHOICE LENGTH HELPFULNESS FORMAT
25
0
50 50
75
87.5
37.5
25
0
12.5 12.5
25
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e
s

(
%
)

Word Choice Length Helpfulness Format
Positive 25 0 50 50
Negative 75 87.5 37.5 25
Indifferent 0 12.5 12.5 25
Pre-Test Findings


10

Recommendations

Based on the Pre-Test findings, the following recommendations were proposed about the document:


The length should be shortened to maintain reader interest

Use fewer fonts

Document should be changed from a presentation and slide format

Be brief but comprehensive

Only use relevant information

































11

Post-Test

The following results are the findings of a survey which tested the same group of individuals as before
in the Pre-Test results, but with the revised document under scrutiny.




As seen here in a further summary of the graph above, increases in positive feedback and decreases in
negative feedback were in every category.

Categories Increases in Positive Feedback (%) Decreases in Negative Feedback (%)
Word Choice 37.5 -62.5
Length 87.5 -87.5
Helpfulness 25 -37.5
Format 37.5 -25




0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
WORD CHOICE LENGTH HELPFULNESS FORMAT
62.5
87.5
75
87.5
12.5
0 0 0
25
12.5
25
12.5
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e
s

(
%
)

Word Choice Length Helpfulness Format
Positive 62.5 87.5 75 87.5
Negative 12.5 0 0 0
Indifferent 25 12.5 25 12.5
Post-Test Findings


12

Findings Continued

The graph below calculates the average total change of positive and negative feedback expressed as a
percent.


Below, the graph shows the decrease in average reading time of the document post revision. This
improvement is proof that the revision saved time and effort and better conveyed its objective.


Average Increase in Positive Feedback (%) Average Decrease in Negative Feedback (%)
Percentages 46.875 -53.125
Average Increase and Decrease of Feedback
0 %
46.9%
-53.1%
42 seconds
10 seconds
Comparison of Average Time to Read Document
Original Document
Revised Document


13

Conclusion

The original document from Fontaine Trailer had the following problems in these areas:

Word Choice
Length
Helpfulness
Format

With the original document, Fontaine Trailer would suffered from:

Employees not understanding the document or task
A higher margin of error
Loss of time and money

In order to solve these issues, 5
th
Element Consulting considered the feedback that was given by current
employees and UA students regarding the original document. These recommendations were then made:

The length should be shortened to maintain reader interest
Use fewer fonts
Document should be changed from a presentation and slide format
Be brief but comprehensive
Only use relevant information

5
th
Element Consulting then was able to draft a new, one page document. This revised document had no
images that did not match then new software and the readers stated that the new document was now:

More concise
Better formatted
Quicker to read
More helpful