Cy Burspace first began working for Epic Electronics in the mid-1970s as a business technology specialist. Today, he is the department head for the company's information systems department. Cy is well known and respected by everyone in the company, and his coworkers recently threw a party to honor his 40th year with Epic. Cy did a lot of reminiscing at the party, telling the newer employees how things were done in the "old days," and comparing them to newer methods. "I'm still amazed at how things have changed. When I first came to Epic, we had a central computer to handle everything. It took up a whole room, but all it really did was generate financial reports for management," said Cy. "Today, employees have their own personal computer, and all are hooked up to a network. All of this connectivity has led to big improvements in our operations. For example, if a production worker wants to find out how many units of a particular component we have in inventory, or wants the name and address of a particular supplier who sells us that component, he or she can get the information in the blink of an eye. In fact, we have even given our suppliers and customers access to our network so that we can share information and provide them with better service. That change has really helped us compete against the bigger firms." "Now," Cy continued, "most of the workers in my department don't even have to be at the office to be connected. We have smartphones and laptops so we can do much of our work from home or while we are on the road." A new employee asked Cy if he was ready to retire. "No way," he said. "I'm in the middle of a major project right now. We're trying to design a single entry point for people to use when logging on to the Epic network. We want to set it up so that the log-on procedure identifies different types of users and automatically gives them access to the types of resources they need. For example, customers who logged on would be allowed to place orders, check on the status of previous orders, and interac