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Self Assessment Questions: True or False
- A long range MIS plan provides direction for the development of the systems, and provides a basis for achieving the specific targets or tasks against a time frame.
- The organisation’s strategic plan need not be the basis for the MIS strategic plan. 5.3 Systems Analysis 5.3.1 Introduction to Systems Analysis System analysis is the survey and planning of the project, the study and analysis of the existing business and information system and the definition of business requirements. System analysis involves two phases: study phase and definition phase. A repository is a collection of databases associated with the application and project. Fig. 5.2: Diagrammatic representation of System analysis Survey phase – The purpose of the survey phase is to determine the worthiness of the project and to create a plan to complete those projects, deemed worthy. To accomplish the survey phase objectives, the system analyst will work with the system owner, system users, IS manager and IS staff to: · Survey problems, opportunities and solutions · Negotiate project scope · Plan the project · Present the project 5.3.2 SDLC System development cycle stages are sometimes known as system study. System concepts which are important in developing business information systems expedite problem solving and improve the quality of decision-making. The system analyst has to do a lot in this connection. They are
confronted with the challenging task of creating new systems an planning major changes in the organization. The system analyst gives a system development project, meaning and direction. The typical breakdown of an information systems life cycle includes a feasibility study, requirements, collection and analysis, design, prototyping, implementation, validation, testing and operation. It may be represented in the form of a block diagram as shown below: Fig. 5.3: SDLC a) Feasibility study – It is concerned with determining the cost effectiveness of various alternatives in the designs of the information system and the priorities among the various system components. b) Requirements, collection and analysis – It is concerned with understanding the mission of the information systems, that is, the application areas of the system within the enterprise and the problems that the system should solve. c) Design – It is concerned with the specification of the information systems structure. There are two types of design: database design and application design. The database design is the design of the database design and the application design is the design of the application programs. d) Prototyping – A prototype is a simplified implementation that is produced in order to verify in practice that the previous phases of the design were well conducted. e) Implementation – It is concerned with the programming of the final operational version of the information system. Implementation alternatives are carefully verifies and compared. f) Validation and testing – It is the process of assuring that each phase of the development process is of acceptable quality and is an accurate transformation from the previous phase. 5.3.3 Roles of Systems Analyst System analysts are the facilitators of the study of the problem and needs of a business to determine how the business systems and information technology can best solve the problem and accomplish improvements for the business.
be drawn in increasing levels of detail, starting with a summary high level view and proceeding o more detailed lower level views. A number of guidelines should be used in constructing DFD. · Choose meaningful names for the symbols on the diagram. · Number the processes consistently. The numbers do not imply the sequence. · Avoid over complex DFD. · Make sure the diagrams are balanced. 5.3.6 Data Dictionary The data dictionary is used to create and store definitions of data, location, format for storage and other characteristics. The data dictionary can be used to retrieve the definition of data that has already been used in an application. The data dictionary also stores some of the description of data structures, such as entities, attributes and relationships. It can also have software to update itself and to produce reports on its contents and to answer some of the queries. Self Assessment Questions: True or False
- Feasibility is a measure of how beneficial the development of an information system would be to an organization.
- The goal of feasibility study is to evaluate alternative systems and to propose the most feasible and desirable system for development.
- DFD uses few symbols like circles and rectangles connected by arrows to represent information flows. 5.4 Systems Design 5.4.1 Introduction to SD The business application system demands designing of systems suitable to the application in project. The major steps involved in the design are the following:
Input Design – Input design is defined as the input requirement specification as per a format required. Input design begins long before the data arrives at the device. The analyst will have to design source documents, input screens and methods and procedures for getting the data into the computer. Output Design – The design of the output is based on the requirement of the user – manager, customer etc. The output formats have to very friendly to the user. Therefore the designer has to ensure the appropriateness of the output format. Development – When the design and its methodology is approved, the system is developed using appropriate business models. The development has to be in accordance to a given standard. The norms have to be strictly adhered to. Testing – Exhaustive and thorough testing must be conducted to ascertain whether the system produces the right results. Testing is time consuming: Test data must be carefully prepared, results reviewed and corrections made in the system. In some instances, parts of the system may have to be redesigned. Testing an information system can be broken down into three types of activities: unit testing, system testing and acceptance test. Unit testing or program testing consists of testing each program separately in the system. The purpose of such testing is to guarantee that programs are error free, but this goal is realistically impossible. Instead, testing should be viewed as a means of locating errors in programs, focusing on finding all ways to make a program fail. Once pinpointed, problems can be corrected. System testing tests the functioning of the information system as a whole. It tries to determine if discrete modules will function together as planned and whether discrepancies exist between the way the system actually works and the way it was conceived. Among the areas examined are performance time, capacity for file storage and handling peak loads, recovery and restart capabilities and manual procedures. Acceptance testing provides the final certification that the system is ready to be used in a production setting. Systems tests are evaluated by users and reviewed by management. When all parties are satisfied that the new system meets their standards, the system is formally accepted for installation. Implementation and Maintenance Conversion – Conversion is the process of changing from the old system to the new system. Four main conversion strategies can be employed. They are – the parallel strategy, the direct cutover strategy, the pilot strategy and the phased strategy. In a parallel strategy both the old system and its potential replacement are run together for a time until everyone is assure that the new one functions correctly. This is the safest conversion approach because, in the event of errors or processing disruptions, the old system can still be used as a backup. But, this approach is very expensive, and additional staff or resources may be required to run the extra system. The direct cutover strategy replaces the old system entirely with the new system on an appointed day. At first glance, this strategy seems less costly than the parallel conversion strategy. But, it is a very risky approach that can potentially be more costly than parallel activities if serious problems
- ________ is defined as the input requirement specification as per a format required.
- _______ is the process of changing from the old system to the new system.
- _________ is also necessary for other failures and problems that arise during the operation of a system. 5.5 Summary After going through this units student would have understood the concept of planning and developing an information system for an organization. The concept of systems analysis and system design is explained in detail. The procedure for the analysis is explained. Student also would have learnt about the systems implementation and its maintenance. 5.6 Terminal Questions
- Write a note on the planning aspects of Information Systems
- Write a note on the development aspects of Information Systems.
- Explain the system development life cycle.
- What is meant by feasibility of a system? What are its various types?
- Explain DFD and Data Dictionary. 5.7 Answers Answers to Self Assessment Questions
- True
- False
- True
- True
- False
- Input Design
- Conversion
- Maintenance Answers to Terminal Questions
- Refer 5.2.
- Refer 5.2.
- Refer 5.3.
- Refer 5.3. 5.Refer 5.3.5 and 5.3. Copyright © 2009 SMU Powered by Sikkim Manipal University .
MB0047-Unit-06-Planning and Development
Alternatives
Unit-06-Planning and Development Alternatives Structure: 6.1 Introduction Objectives 6.2 Ascertaining the Class of Information 6.3 Determining the Information Requirement 6.4 Management of Information Quality in the MIS 6.5 Organisation for Development of MIS 6.6 MIS: Development Process Model 6.7 Summary 6.8 Terminal Questions
One can define the organisational information as the information required by a number of person- nel, departments and divisions or the functions in the organisation. Such information can be deter- mined by constructing a matrix of information versus user as per the table given below. It can be observed from the table that the information entity is one, but its usages are different. For example, the employee attendance information would be used by the Personnel Department for legal compliance of maintaining the muster recommended by the Factory Inspector. The production manager would use it for scheduling, rescheduling and loading of the jobs on the shop floor depending upon the persons present. The corporate planning and administration will use it for manpower assessment and control and manpower forecasting. The following table indicates the various classes of information: Table 6.1: Classes of Information Information class Example of information User Organisational The number of employees, products, services locations the type of business, turnover and variety of the details of each one of these entities. Many users at all the Levels Functional Managerial Knowledge Purchases, sales, production, stocks, receivables, payables, outstanding, budgets, statutory information. The trends in sales, production, technology. The deviations from the budgets, targets, norms etc. Competitor s information, industry and business information plan performance and target; and its analysis. Functional heads and others Middle and the Top Management. Decision support Status information on a particular aspect, such as utilisation, profitability standard, requirement versus availability. Information for problem solving and modelling. Quantitative information on the business status. Non-moving inventory, Middle management and operations management.
overdue payments and receivables. Operational Information on the production, sales, purchase, dispatches consumptions, etc. in the form of planned versus actual. The information for monitoring of execution schedules. Operational and management Supervisor, Section Officers Table 6.2: Matrix of Information versus User for a Personnel Function Information entity Manager (Personnel) Manager (Production) Manager (Administration) Manage (Accounts) Employees’ attendance
X X X —
Salary wages and overtime
X X X
Human resources information
X X —
The organisational information requirement needs to be studied thoroughly and critically as used across the organisation. It is necessary, therefore, to map the information in terms of the source, generation and usage, so that the designer can provide a path from the acquisition to generation and the storage. Since the usage of the organisational information is at different levels for different purposes, it is advisable to store the data in the form of the database which will be useful for the users for generating their respective information needs. The determination of the information can be done by taking each business function, such as Personnel, Sales, Marketing, Production Commercial, etc. and develop the information versus the user matrix. Functional Managerial Information The functional information is defined as a set of information required by the functional head conducting the administration and management of the function. This information is used by a manager to plan and control the function. Functional information is largely factual, statistical and detailed in multi-dimensions of the function. For example, if you take the sales information, it can be processed in seven ways, viz. the product, the product groups, the market segment, the geographic zones, the locations, the customer, and the organisation structure.
· The outstanding more than six months not to exceed Rs 0.2 million. · The capacity utilisation should be minimum 85 per cent. · The employee attendance per month should be 99 per cent. The functional goals and objectives are necessary to achieve overall corporate achievements, most of such goals and objectives are potentially achievable within the managerial and physical resources that the manager has at his disposal. It is, therefore, necessary to inform the manager on the achievements of these targets on a continuous basis. In summary, the functional information would emanate from the work design and procedures, the managerial responsibility and with reference to the functional goals and objectives, and would be determined by studying the work design and procedures and the responsibility which the manager holds for the business performance. That information, which measures the business activity and evaluates the performance on the key target areas, is the functional information. The series of such information are the managers and their functional heads who together execute the business activity. Knowledge (An Information Set) The knowledge creates an awareness of those aspects of business where the manager is forced to think, decide and act. Such information shows the trend of the activity or a result against the scale. For example, the sales are declining and the trend is likely to continue in the next quarter, product is failing continuously on one aspect and the reason of failure is the process of manufacturing. Such information pin-points the area or entity and forces the manager to act. It highlights deviations from the norm or standard and also any abnormal developments which are not in concurrence with the forecasts or expectations. Such information gives rise to business decisions, which will affect the process of business significantly. In some situations the strategic decisions become necessary to solve the problem. The knowledge may cut across the functional boundaries of the organisation. The action or decision may fall in other functional areas of business operations. The decision may fall in the domain of top management or the middle management. The knowledge is required by the middle and top management as they are the ones who conceive, plan and implement the business plan. The knowledge information supports the functions of the middle and the top management. KM edge is tracked continuously and reported in a fixed format, for consistency and at fixed interval for updating the knowledge base. The nature of knowledge is analytical and relates to the past current and the future. The knowledge is reported in graphic formats for a quick grasp and managerial response. Decision Support Information Most of the information required by the middle and the top management is for decision making. The information does not act as a direct input to the decision making procedure or formula supports the manager in the efforts of decision making.
Information is used in a decision support system for model building and problem solving; support may act in two ways, one for justifying the need of a decision, and the other for decision making itself. For example, the information on the non-moving inventory justifies the decision of its display at a throw away prices. The demand forecasts information aids in the decision on determining economic order quantity for production or a sale. The decision support information can be determined for the organisation at the problem leaving its use to the decision-maker in a suitable manner. The source of this information could be internal or external to the organisation. It can be determined by identifying the tools, technical modes and procedures, used by the managers in the decision- making. Operational Information This information is required by the operational and the lower levels of the management. The purpose of this information is fact-finding and taking such actions or decisions which will affect operations at a micro level. The decisions may be to stay on overtime, draw additional material change the job from one machine to the other, send a reminder to the supplier for the supply of material. These decisions are such that they make the routine operations of the business smooth and efficient. These decisions do not fall in the category of the managerial decisions. The sources of operational information are largely internal through transaction processing and the information relates to a small time span and is mostly current. Self Assessment Question True or False
- The design of the MIS should consider the class of information as a whole and provide suitable information system architecture to generate the information for various users in the organisation.
- The functional information is defined as a set of information required by the customer conducting the administration and management of the function. 6.3 Determining the Information Requirement The sole purpose of the MIS is to produce such information which will reduce uncertainty risk in a given situation. The difficulty to determine a correct and complete set of information is on account of the factors given below:
- The capability constraint of the human being as an information processor, a problem solver and a decision-maker.
- The nature and the variety of information in precise terms.
When the user has to select one answer from a finite set of answers a closed question should be asked. For example, "Which are the raw materials used for making a product?" But an open question is put, when the user has no precise knowledge but has an ability to determine all answers to select one out of them? For example, "Which are the raw materials which can be used in a product?" In open questions, the answers may not be immediate but can be obtained by surveying the domain knowledge of the user. When multiple users or several decision-makers in similar functions or positions are involved, a brain storming session is performed to cover all possible answers to the questions. When several users are involved, group consensus can be sought to get the most feasible set of answers. The experts or experienced users are asked to give their best answers—this approach is called the Delphi method. In all these methods, the system designer has to test the validity of all the answers independently. An experienced designer is able to analyse critically the answers given to the ques- tions and determine the correct information requirement. Determining from the Existing System In a number of cases the existing system, which has been evolved after a number of years, and has been designed out of experience gives straightaway the requirement of information. In any situa- tions, systems from other companies can give additional information requirements. The fund of knowledge is available from the textbooks, handbooks, research studies which can determine the information requirement. For example, systems such as the accounts receivables, the accounts payables, the pay roll, the inventory control, the financial accounting, etc., have a well determined, information requirement. Irrespective of the type of organisation and business, ninety per cent of the information require- ment is common and the balance ten per cent may be typical to the organisation or the business, which needs to be determined separately. The managers in the operations and the middle manage- ment use the existing systems as a reference for determining the information requirements. This method is adopted when the rules and decision methods are outside the purview of the decision-maker. They are determined or imposed by external sources such as the Government, the Authority, the principles, etc. For example, the information required to manage shares of the com- pany are determined through the rules and regulations laid down by the Company Law Board. The manager of the shares department has very little additional information need. In all such functions, the manager determines the information needs and the designer of the MIS can always fall back on the prescribed law books, manuals, theory and textbooks, hand books, etc to confirm the information needs. Analysing the Critical Success Factors Every business organisation performs successfully on efficient management of certain critical success factors. Other factors are important and play a support role in the functioning of the
organisation. Many times a function is singularly critical to the successful functioning of a business organisation. For example, in a high technology business, the management of the technology becomes the critical function. Or in a service organisation, the management of service becomes a critical factor. In a consumer industry, marketing and service becomes the critical function. The information requirements of such organisations largely relate to these critical factors. The analysis of these functions or factors will determine the information requirements. Experimentation and Modelling When there is total uncertainty, the designer and the user of the information resort to this method for determining the information requirement. The experimentation would decide the methodology for handling the complex situation. If the method is finalised, the information needs are determined as they have been evolved through the experimentation. Test marketing of a product is an approach of the experimentation to decide the correct marketing strategy. Sometimes models are used for deciding the initial information needs and they are modified during the implementation stage. The information requirements determined through such methods undergo a qualitative change as the users get the benefit of learning and experience and the needs may undergo a change or get replaced completely. Self Assessment Questions: True or False
- The sole purpose of the MIS is to produce such information which will reduce uncertainty risk in a given situation.
- The experts or experienced users are asked to give their best answers – this approach is called the Delphi method.
- Only few business organisations perform successfully on efficient management of certain critical success factors. 6.4 Management of Information Quality in the MIS Information is a corporate resource, as important as the capital, labour, know-how etc. and is being used for decision-making. Its quality, therefore, is required to be very high. A low quality information would adversely affect the organisational performance as it affects decision-making. The quality of information is the result of the quality of the input data, processing design, system design, system and procedures which generate such a data, and the management of the data processing function. Quality, unlike any other product, is not an absolute concept. Its level is determined with reference to the context and its use, and the user. Perfect quality just as perfect information is non-achievable and has cost-benefit implications.
Knowledge of the task, tools and technology The extent of knowledge in the application of the tools and technology. Higher, then less information relevant to and tools correct analysis. The Technocrats scientists and managers of technology have definite information. The quality of these important parameters is ensured by conducting a proper systems analysis, designing a suitable information system and ensuring its maintenance from time to time, and also subjecting it to audit checks to ensure the system integrity. All The quality of the parameters is assured if the following steps are taken.
- the input is processed and controlled, as input and process design.
- All updating and corrections are completed before the data processing begins.
- Inputs (transactions, documents, fields and records) are subject to validity checks.
- The access to the data files is protected and secured through an authorisation scheme.
- Intermediate processing checks are introduced to ensure that the complete data is processed right through, i.e. run to run controls.
- Due attention is given to the proper file selection in terms of data, periods and so on.
- Back-up of the data and files are taken to safeguard corruption or loss of data.
- The system audit is conducted from time to time to ensure that the information system specifications are not violated.
- The system modifications are approved by following a set procedure which begins with authorisation of a change to its implementation followed by an audit.
- Systems are developed with a standard specification of design and development.
- Information system processing is controlled through programme control, process control and access control.
- Ensure MIS model confirms consistency to business plan satisfying information needs to achieve business goals. The assurance of quality is a continuing function and needs to be evolved over a period and requires to be monitored properly. It cannot be assessed in physical units of measure. The user of the information is the best judge of the quality. Self Assessment Questions
- Perfect ______ just as perfect information is non-achievable and has cost-benefit implications.
- All the inputs are processed and ______ , as input and process design.
- _______ of the data and files are taken to safeguard corruption or loss of data. 6.5 Organisation for Development of MIS Proper people organisation is basic to the management of any activity or function. The same thing is true for the development of the MIS. The principles of the organisation and structuring the organisation to the specific needs of the function are a prime necessity when we talk with reference to the MIS. A number of issues come up and they are not the same in all the organisations. Hence, the organisation structure of the MIS would differ from one organisation to the other. The type, the size and the structure of corporate organisation becomes the basis for the MIS organisation for handling the MIS function and management alternatives. The major issues in- volved are:
- Whether the MIS function should be handled as a centralised or decentralised activity.
- The allocation of the hardware and software resources.
- The maintenance of the MIS service level at an appropriate level.
- Fitting the organisation of the MIS in the corporate organisation, its culture and the management philosophy. The question of centralization versus decentralisation is resolved by assessing the status of infor- mation resource management in the organisation, i.e., whether the status is the information systems management or the information resource management. When it is a case of information systems management then the organisation of the MIS would be centralised, but if it is a case of information resource management, it will be a decentralised organisation. In a centralised set, the responsibility of acquisition of the data, of providing the information to the users, becomes the centralised function. The centralised organisation is also recommended when the information needs are more or less static. In such cases, the user of the information is free from the responsibility of designing the systems and also from deciding the hardware and the software. However, if the information needs are varying and are more strategic in nature, the reliance on the centralised set-up becomes a difficult workable proposition. When such a situation exists, a decen- tralised organisation is more effective. Depending upon the situation, hardware and software solutions are available. In a decentralised set-up the allocation of hardware is a centralised decision but the collection of data and its process- ing becomes the user’s responsibility. Training, problem-solving and system development, howev- er, is a centralised function. In all such situations, the information processing is based on the data-
