Transcript ď - Sites
Info Systems in the Enterprise (continued) Lecture 3 for the 5th Year Students Information Technology • The information technology (IT) department makes technology decisions for the enterprise, such as a decision whether to build or buy new information systems or when a computer or information system has outlived its useful life. • The overall technology strategy often is referred to as the information architecture of the company. • Many organizations elevate the importance of information technology by including a chief information officer (CIO) executive position that reports to the CEO. • The IT department uses software to maintain hardware and software. • For example, Web site management programs collect data designed to help organizations make informed decisions regarding their Web presence. • This data might include the locations of their Web site visitors, which Web browser they use, the days and times they visit the Web site, and what keywords they entered into a search engine to locate the site. • Security software enables the department to limit access to sensitive information. General Purpose Info Systems • Some information systems in an enterprise cross the boundaries of functional units and are used by one or more functional units in an enterprise. • These general purpose, or enterprise-wide systems, become necessary in an enterprise for two reasons. • First, functional units within an enterprise have a significant need to share data among the units. • Second, enterprise-wide systems can collect and combine data more quickly and provide executive management access to a more upto-date and accurate view of what is happening in the organization. • Advances in computing speed, storage capacity, security, and networking have made enterprise-wide systems more attractive to organizations in recent years. • General purpose information systems generally fall into one of five categories: office information systems, transaction processing systems, management information systems, decision support systems, and expert systems. • The following screens present each type of these general purpose information systems. Office Information Systems • An OIS is an information system that enables employees to perform tasks using computers and other electronic devices, instead of manually. • An office information system increases employee productivity and assists with communications among employees. • Some people describe an office information system as office automation. • Just about every type of business or organization uses some form of office information system. • For example, a school might post its class schedule on the Internet. • When the school updates the schedule, students receive an e-mail notification. • In a manual system, the school would photocopy the schedule and mail it to each student’s house. • An office information system uses many common software products to support its activities. • Typical software in such a system includes word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, e-mail, Web browser, Web page authoring, personal information management, and groupware. • To send text, graphics, audio, and video to others, an office information system uses communications technology such as voice • In an office information system, computers have modems, Web cams, speakers, and microphones. • Employees in an office information system often use other types of hardware such as scanners, fax machines, digital cameras, smart phones, Ultra-Mobile PCs, handheld navigation devices, and other mobile devices. Transaction Processing Systems • A (TPS) is an information system that captures and processes data from day-to-day business activities. • Transaction processing systems were among the first computerized systems that processed business data. • Many people initially referred to the functions of these systems as data processing. • The first transaction processing systems computerized an existing manual system. • The intent of these systems was to process transactions faster, reduce clerical costs, and improve customer service. • When you make a purchase with a credit card at a store, you are interacting with a transaction processing system. • A transaction is an individual business activity. • Examples of transactions are deposits, payments, orders, and reservations. • Transactions take place in real time, meaning that as soon as you make a purchase with a credit card, you can visit your credit card organization’s Web site and view the transaction. • In an organization, clerical staff typically uses computers and special software to perform the following activities associated with a transaction processing system: • 1. Recording a transaction such as an airline reservation, a customer’s order, an employee’s time card, or a car owner’s payment. • 2. Confirming an action or causing a response, such as sending an itinerary, sending a thankyou note to a customer, printing an employee's paycheck, or issuing a receipt to a car owner. • 3. Maintaining data, which involves adding new data, modifying existing data, or deleting unwanted data. • Early transaction processing systems mostly used batch processing. • With batch processing, the computer collects data over time and processes all transactions later, as a group. • As computers became more powerful, system developers created online transaction processing information systems. • With online transaction processing (OLTP), the computer processes each transaction as it is entered. • For example, when you book a flight using an airline’s Web site, the airline probably uses OLTP. • You use the airline’s Web site to schedule your desired flights. • The Web site immediately displays your itinerary and sends you a copy of your itinerary. • The Web site uses OLTP to bill you online or mail an invoice to you. • Today, most transaction processing systems use OLTP. • For some routine processing tasks, they also use batch processing. • Many enterprise-sized organization use batch processing to calculate paychecks and print invoices. Management Information Systems • A (MIS) is an information system that generates accurate, timely, and organized information, so that managers and other users can make decisions, solve problems, supervise activities, and track progress. • Management information systems evolved from transaction processing systems. • Managers realized the computer and its software had more potential than just supporting a transaction processing system. • Its capability of quickly computing and comparing data could produce meaningful information for managers. • Management information systems often are integrated with transaction processing systems. • To process a sales order, the transaction processing system records the sale, updates the customer’s account balance, and reduces the inventory count. • Using this information, the related management information system produces reports that recap daily sales activities, summarize weekly and monthly sales • A MIS focuses on creating information that managers and other users need to perform their jobs. • A MIS creates three basic types of reports: detailed, summary, and exception. • A detailed report usually lists just transactions, • For example, a Detailed Flight Report lists the number of passengers booked for a given flight. • A summary report consolidates data usually with totals, tables, or graphs, so that • An exception report identifies data outside of a normal condition. • These out-of-the-ordinary conditions, called the exception criteria, define the normal activity or status range. • For example, a Premier Club Booking Exception Report notifies the airline’s marketing department that some flights have not met minimum goals for booking Premier Club members. • Exception reports save managers time. • Instead of searching through a detailed report, managers simply review the exception report. • These reports help managers focus on situations that require immediate decisions or actions. • Most information systems support all three types of reports. Decision Support Systems • A decision support system (DSS) helps users analyze information and make decisions. • Often, a transaction processing system or management information system does not generate the type of report a manager needs to make a decision. • A variety of decision support systems exist. • Some are company specific and designed solely for managers. • Others are available to everyone on the Web. • Programs that analyze data, such as those in a decision support system, sometimes are called online analytical processing programs (OLAP). • Because they summarize information, these programs process many records at a time. • A decision support system uses data from internal and external sources. • Internal sources of data might include sales orders, MRP and MRP II results, inventory records, or financial data from accounting and financial analyses. • Data from external source could include interest rates, population trends, costs of new housing construction, or raw material pricing. • Some decision support systems include their own query languages, statistical analyses, spreadsheets, and graphics that help users retrieve data and analyze the results. • Some also allow managers to create a model of the factors affecting a decision. • A product manager might need to decide on a price for a new product. • A simple model for finding the best price would include factors for the expected sales volume at various price levels. • The model allows the user to ask what-if question and view the expected results. • A special type of decision support system, called an executive information system (EIS), supports the strategic information needs of executive management. • An EIS presents information as charts and tables that show trends, ratios, and statistics that aid in the decision making process. • Such a system typically uses external data sources such as the Dow Jones Interactive or the Internet. • These external data sources provide current information about interest rates, commodity prices, and other leading economic indicators. • A large number of executive managers use EIS to compile information from various departments, such as marketing, manufacturing, and finance. • For example, a manager might use an EIS to analyze a company’s financial trends. • The 5th General purpose Information System in an enterprise are Expert Systems. • (that is on the other powerpoint lecture)