Talk:Operational Support Systems

Role of Dataware House in OSS
well my question is can a OSS systems exists without a Dataware??

--202.125.149.154 11:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. It needs some form of data storage, but the nature of the storage will depend on the size of the implementation. --Phil Holmes 11:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

removed the link to the year 2000
removed the link to the year 2000, because it did not seem relevant to the topic being discussed Alexymj 09:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Alexy

Operational Support Systems or Operational support systems?
My assertion is that, since Operational Support Systems is abbreviated to OSS, then the words should be capitalised. Please discuss here before changing the title. --Phil Holmes 15:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Operations Support Systems
This term was created by Bell Laboratories during the 1970's during the era when many job functions in telephone companies were automated by new computer systems running Unix and application programs written in C.  The term "operations" refers to telephone company groups of people who worked to keep the network functioning properly. The term "support systems" describes automated computer systems used by "operations" staff to improve the effectiveness of this work. Technical support teams in the telecom and IT industries are still referred to as "operations" by company management and those in the industry. The term "operational" just means something that works .... in contrast to "non-operational" that means something does not work. The correct terminology is thus "OPERATIONS SUPPORT SYSTEMS". Been there, done that. Worked for Ma Bell on OSS's during 1970's and manufacturers since then. Check out Bell System Technical Journal and Bell Labs Record articles from 1970's. Telecom_Eng, 14 Feb 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Telecom eng (talk • contribs) 22:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC).


 * The assertion by above that Operations is correct and Operational is not is not true. I've worked in the field for over 15 years and have always heard it referred to as Operational. However, it's clear that there's actually no right or wrong answer - both are used, probably almost equally. So deleting the original named page and changing it without discussion seems wrong to me. I'd be interested in others' thoughts on the correct way to resolve the issue.--Phil Holmes 17:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge pages
please merge the entries "operational support systems" and "operations Support system". These are the same. THe merger woule require a full review. Thanks you. Johny Ghattas. www.Smart-Path.com

Operational support systems vs ERP
actually i have a question i think that OSS solution for enterprise are equivalent to an Enterprise resource planning solution am i right???

if so then why organization spent so much on ERP? if i am wrong then can you explain the reason


 * OSS systems are specific to the telecomms industry, and so include functions that many enterprises would not normally need - inventory that decribes where cables and telegraph poles are located, for example, or systems that receive alarm notifications from switches and routers. In comparison, most other industries work on the basis of warehouse stock and the people that manipulate or add to that stock by manufacturing.  So ERP systems concentrate on stock and people, OSS systems on physical devices and how they behave.  This is a quite considerable over-simplification, but it shows the differences.


 * Large implementations of ERP systems and OSS systems are either expensive or very expensive. They're both software, right?


 * By the way - it's traditional on talk pages to sign your comments. If you click the little signature icon above (10th from the left) this will be done automatically.  --Phil Holmes 09:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

- sorry my bad well i have assembled a document regarding automation(OSS)vs ERP i am pasting it here please feel free to update it if you find any thing false - Note: The Term Automation refers to OSS in the preceding sections. This documnet is written keeping in view "the telco industry" - Automation Vs Enterprise Resource Planning

Generally there is a misconception that the process of Automating business process is equal to enterprise wide resource planning.

Automation is the process in which differnet processes are controlled by computer system the most known example of industrial automation is the automobile industry in which the process of manufacturing car has been completely controlled by computer systems. In terms of other industries such as telecom the trend of automation has also being adopted.In the telecom industry the core and time critical business process have been transformed from manual to computer base. The core business processes such as HR, CRM, SCM, Accounts and others are automated with the use of computer system. The reason business process are being automated is due to competitive environment in order for an organization to prosper it needs to have an edge on there competitors. Automation provides this edge to such organization. The process of automation normally automates the business process i.e. the complete manual process is mapped on computer systems to automate them. The benefits that are achieved by an organization due to automation are:

•	Work flow becomes efficient from months to weeks

•	The data collection processes improves

•	Information generation process becomes efficient

•	The information derived form the data can be timely used by managers

The above features provide organization with better ROI and better information extraction from data but still the organization lacks benefits of decision support system. For an organization to stay as a market leader and increase their clientele they need to move on with there strategies. Automation is better for a manual organization after automation the organization should switch over to the real deal. Now days technology is cheap and can be incorporated with in an organization easily, automation only provides competitive edge for a shorter period of time as competitors can easily adopt the automation process very rapidly, especially in term of large organization which requires more time to change as compared to the smaller organization.

ERP consists of number of systems of which OSS (automation) is part of it. Enterprise wide resource planning is far more superior then automation as in automation the information is only present to the lower managers. In ERP this information is transformed to knowledge and then from knowledge to wisdom to provide management the exact and precise information that is required to keep a competitive edge.

ERP involves business process re-structuring to maximize the workflow efficiency that could not be achieved with automation only. Decision support systems are the most important factor in the organizational competitiveness in the industry as timely decision making can help organizations and provide the edge over the competitors. This type of decision support can not be achieved in automation only as the data available at the OSS level is not that mature then at the DSS level as can be seen in the above figure.

Automation process only helps in data collection process, there is no concept of unified view of the organization. The ERP integrates all the business processes in an organization to give a single view of the organization, causing data from different functional units to be stored in a single repository the data-ware house where different tools and techniques are required to extract information from it, extracted information is enriched to knowledge and wisdom. The benefits and scope of ERP is beyond automation from every aspect, consider the example of Risk. The risk involve in ERP implementation is much higher than implementing automation that’s why one often hear that the organization was bankrupt after failure in ERP implementation, never heard automation failure caused an organization to rollout of business.

--202.125.149.158 05:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)MaT (Student)