Table of Contents

Task 1............................................................................................................................... 4

1.1. Human Resource.................................................................................................4

1.2. Procurement.........................................................................................................5

1.3. Customer Service.................................................................................................5

Task 2............................................................................................................................... 6

2.1. OAS - Office Automation Systems.......................................................................6

2.2. TPS - Transaction processing system..................................................................7

2.3. DSS - Decision Support Systems.........................................................................8

2.4. EIS - Executive Information Systems...................................................................8

Task 3............................................................................................................................... 9

3.1. Archival Records..................................................................................................9

3.2. An online patient diagnosis and advice system for out of hours health support.10

Task 4..............................................................................................................................11

4.1. Created table with following columns.................................................................11

4.2. Add Given Data to Table....................................................................................12

4.3. Create Two Queries...........................................................................................12

4.3.1. Customer names and address who lives in Bradford......................................12

4.3.2. A list of female customers’ first and last name and email...............................13

Task 5..............................................................................................................................14

5.1. Operations..........................................................................................................14

5.2. Marketing...........................................................................................................15

Task 6..............................................................................................................................15

6.1. Alternative to MS Access...................................................................................15

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6.2. Disadvantages of working in this way................................................................19

Evidence checklist

Summary of evidence required by student Evidence presented

Task 1 The introductory section of your report evaluating the information

needs of different function areas of Bradford Health Products.4,6

Task 2 The second section of your report describing the different types

of information systems.6,7,8,9

Task 3 The third section of your report investigating the current trends in

using information systems to solve business problems.9,11

Task 4 The fourth section of your report will consist of two Microsoft

Access reports that show valid, accurate information presented

in a professional manner in accordance with the specification

provided.

11,14

Task 5 The fifth section of your report evaluating the suitability of

information systems for different functional areas of Bradford

Health Products.

14,15

Task 6 The sixth section of your report evaluating alternative methods of

solving the problem.15-19

2

Task 1 - For each of the following business functions, list some typical data that they

would receive, the processing it would go through and the information that would be

produced. Say what decisions could be made by management using the resultant

information.

Human resources Procurement Customer service

1.1. Human Resource

If we take into account the current scenario of Bradford Health Products, it’s quite

obvious that a number of employees will be working with the organization. It is of the

utmost importance for the HR Department to gather the data given below for manage

their work efficiently (Caliskan, 2010).

Number of employees

Categories of employees

Salaries of employees

Working Shifts

Leaves and absence

Staff training

Public Holidays

Tenure of employment contract

Using the above data, following decisions can be made by HR department:

Reduce managerial expenses and decrease errors by using policy automation.

Scheduling and managing leave plans for different key employees in different

categories.

Set up flexible work activities for new projects at cost effective level of skills

utilizing permanent, short-contract and temporary workers.

Assess and examine employee performance regarding personal tasks and

corporate goals.

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Encourage the employees and improve performance through motivation in form

of target oriented compensation, fringe benefits, non-cash appraisals and

bonuses.

Make sure timely and accurate transactions and excluding excessive process

steps.

Achieve staffing, hiring and positioning to make sure that appropriate talent is

hired.

(Oracle, 2006; Brewster, et al., 2007)

1.2. Procurement

The process of buying goods or services is called procurement. Procurement includes

organizing and processing of demand as well as the end receipt and payment approval.

Since we are dealing with the situation where Bradford Health Products has

procurement department so it has to buy products and goods and in order to do so in a

reasonable manner, proper evaluation is necessary for attaining the best possible

outcomes (Kakwezi & Nyeko, 2006).

Following decisions can be made by management:

Planning the purchase

Determination of Standards

Development of Specifications

Research and selection of Supplier

Analysis of Value

Financing

Negotiation of Price

Control of Inventory and stores

Disposal and other related factors

(Kattel & Lember, 2010)

1.3. Customer Service

Customers are the lifeblood of any organization. In this case of Bradford Health

Products, the customers are patients mostly. The best way to treat the customer is by

offering a good customer service and considering them as the honorable guests.

4

Following is the typical data that is used for customer service review (Rogelberg,

Barnes-Farrell, & Creamer, 1999).

Number of customers

The dollar amount spent per customer per transaction

The frequency of customer visits

These decisions can be made by the management:

Help the customers in better way

Improve customer service by overcoming the complaints

Oversee employee’s attitude towards customers

Ability to read customers

(Jahanshahi, Gashti, & Seyed Abbas Mirdamadi, 2011)

Task 2 - The following is a list of information systems employed by Bradford Health Products. For each one, explain what its purpose is, who in the organization would use it and how it would support decision making.

OAS - Office Automation Systems TPS - Transaction processing system DSS - Decision Support Systems EIS - Executive Information Systems

2.1. OAS - Office Automation Systems

Purpose:

Office automation system gathers methods, collects and transfers information and data

in electronic form of an office communication. In simple words, OAS can be deemed as

computer-oriented information system that assembles, process, record and finally

circulate electronic messages, documentation and other forms of communication within

the organization. OAS also facilitates in elevating or systematizing prevailing office

procedures (Cardoso, 2006).

User:

OAS is used mostly by lower management to enter data of the operations that are

happening within the organization.

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Support in Decision Making:

OAS can be used by all departments in an organization, it helps in the following matters

of decision making:

Multiple tasks can be realized easily by Office automation

The need of larger staff is eliminated.

Less storage needed to store large data.

Ease of multiple access in a system

(Cardoso, 2006)

2.2. TPS - Transaction processing system

Purpose:

In this style, work is divided into small operations known as transactions. A system to

process these transactions can be a software, or combination of software/hardware

which supports processing these transactions. (Rahmatian, 2003)

User:

This informations system is supervised and utilized commonly by middle management.

(Rahmatian, 2003)

Support in Decision Making:

The features of TPS are performance, continuous availability of data, data integrity,

ease of use and modular growth.

A TPS allows middle level management to get the details of transaction management

and helping them to:

Manage simultaneous transaction processing.

Enable data sharing.

Ensure data integrity

Prioritization of transaction execution in order of precedence.

(IBM, 2012; Kohler, Hsu, Rogers, & H.Bahaa-El-Din, 1991)

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2.3. DSS - Decision Support Systems

Purpose:

Decision Support System is a computerized system that maintains corporate decision-

making activities. The Data used in this system can be Warehouse data and inventories

of information assets, sales and numbers comparisons between two periods and

anticipated profit figures on basis of sale expectations (Bhargava & J.Power, 2001).

User:

DSSs assist mid-level and higher management in operations and planning and support

decision making (Bhargava & J.Power, 2001).

Support in Decision Making:

Benefits of DSS can be as follows:

Personal efficiency is improved

Decision making process gets faster

Organizational control is increased

Problem solving abilities are sharpened

Interpersonal communication is facilitated

Training and learning are promoted

Supports decisions by generating new evidence

Increase the market value among the competitors

Broadens the visions to approach problems

(Dlodlo, Hunter, Cele, Botha, & Metelerkamp, 2009)

2.4. EIS - Executive Information Systems

Purpose:

In EIS, the emphasis is placed on graphical representation of data in user friendly

interfaces. It provides extensive reporting experiences. Generally EIS are corporate-

wide DSS which aid top-management to examine, compare, and underline

developments in critical areas in a manner that they can scrutinize performance and

isolate opportunities and threats. (Kaniclides & Kimble, 1994)

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User:

Executive information system facilitates senior executive management in decision

making by providing ease of access to internal and external data and information

related to organizational goals and objectives. (Power, 2002)

Support in decision making:

Following are some advantages of using the data from EIS:

Best way for top-executives to make decisions.

Offers timely information of company summary.

Information that is provided is better understood.

Information tracking is improved.

Provides efficient decision making.

(Arnott, Jirachiefpattana, & O’Donnell, 2004)

Task 3 - For each of the following list of business areas, choose a type of information system that you consider would be suitable. Explain how the information system works and what advantages it offers.

Archival of business records

An online patient diagnosis and advice system for out of hours health support

3.1. Archival Records

Archival Records:

The business archives record and store the daily activities of business activities and its

operations. Managing these archives is the key to successful business because these

are the critical indications about the business path to reach its goals. In my opinion

Decision Supportive System is best for using in Archival records. It’ll work in the

following manner (Myburgh, 2005)

DSS focusses on problems that are vital for decision making.

DSS efforts to associate traditional data and retrieval functions with systematic

techniques.

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DSS precisely concentrates on structures that can be used interactively by less

computer oriented people.

DSS stresses flexibility and malleability to adapt changes in the environment and

the approach of decision making.

(Dlodlo, Hunter, Cele, Botha, & Metelerkamp, 2009)

Moreover, the advantages of using this system are:

Solve semi-structured and unstructured problems

Managers are supported at all levels

Groups and individuals are facilitated

Decisions are arranged orderly according to their interdependence

Design, choice and intelligence are supported

Malleable and compliant

Process can also be Human controlled

End user has the facility of development

Demonstrating and analysis of data

Standalone and web-based integration

Support varieties of decision trees and processes

(Bhargava & J.Power, 2001)

3.2. An online patient diagnosis and advice system for out of hours health support

Transaction Processing System is the best informations system, in my educational

judgment, to be used in this particular case. The reason for choosing this information

system is because of the fact that it supports batch processing, real-time processing,

time sharing and transaction processing with support for timely back-up

procedures(Alauddin, Amin, & Azad, 2012).

The advantages of using TPS are as follows:

The data generated by transactions can be processed

Higher level of integrity and accuracy is maintained

Produce timely documents and reports

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Labour efficiency is increased

Help provide increased service

Loyalty of customers can be build and maintained

Competitive advantage can be achieved

(Kohler, Hsu, Rogers, & H.Bahaa-El-Din, 1991)

Task 4- Create a Microsoft Access database to hold and process data into information

for Bradford Health Products. Construct it using the following stages:

Create a table to hold the following data about customers: first name, surname,

title, DOB, gender, address first line, address second line, town, county,

postcode, telephone number, email address. You must ensure that your

database only holds valid and accurate data.

Enter 10 customer records using the data held in the Appendix located at the end

of the assignment brief.

Create two queries to extract useful information from the database and present

them in a professional manner using two Microsoft Access reports inserted into

your Word report document, as follows:

o A list of the names and addresses of customers who live in Bradford,

sorted upon postcode in ascending order

o A list of female customers, their first names, surnames and email

addresses, sorted upon surname in ascending order

4.1. Created table with following columns

First name

Surname

Title

DOB

Gender

Address first line

Address second line

Town

10

County

Postcode

Telephone number

Email address

To ensure valid data, proper data type is used for every column attribute as displayed in

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.1

4.2. Add Given Data to Table

4.3. Create Two Queries to extract useful information from the database and present

them in a professional manner using two Microsoft Access reports inserted into

your Word report document, as follows

4.3.1. Customer names and address who lives in Bradford sorted on postcode in

ascending order

4.3.1.1. Query in SQL View

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SELECT CustomerInfo.Firstname, CustomerInfo.Surname,

CustomerInfo.Address_firstLine, CustomerInfo.Address_secondLine,

CustomerInfo.Town, CustomerInfo.County, CustomerInfo.PostCode

FROM CustomerInfo

WHERE (((CustomerInfo.Town)='bradford'))

ORDER BY CustomerInfo.PostCode ASC;

4.3.1.2. Data Extracted with above Query

4.3.1.3. Data Extracted from query and Displayed in Report Format

4.3.2. A list of female customers’ first and last name and email, sorted upon

surname in ascending order

4.3.2.1. Query in SQL View

SELECT CustomerInfo.Firstname, CustomerInfo.Surname, CustomerInfo.Email

FROM CustomerInfo

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WHERE (((CustomerInfo.Gender)='female'))

ORDER BY CustomerInfo.Surname ASC;

4.3.2.2. Data Extracted with above Query

4.3.2.3. Data Extracted from query and Displayed in Report Format

Task 5-List two different business functions in the organization that could make use of

the simple information system that you have built in Microsoft Access. What decisions

could be made using the information generated by the queries and what level of

decision making do you consider this to be at?

5.1. Operations

Operations is the function of a business that is responsible for cresting the goods and

services of a business. As from the query first it can been seen that more customer are

purchasing products from the Bradford, So, operation department can forecast the

demand of products. It can also help Customer Services department to assume that

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more service will be required for Bradford customer as ratio is higher. The operations manager can make best decisions on the basis of this data.

5.2. Marketing

The basic data of location of customers can help the marketing department in focusing

on the areas where they’ve less sales. For Example, if customers are coming mostly

from Bradford, the marketing radius should be expanded to other cities also.Marketing

strategies are mostly set out by marketing team whose hierarchy is from middle

management to higher management, this data would be helpful for them.

Task 6-Microsoft Access is limited in the processing it can carry out and the features it

has for displaying information. What other Office application software could be used for

this purpose and how could I pass data over without having to rekey it? Now pass the

data to the application and process some information from it by calculating the ratio of

customers who live in each town and displaying the results in visual form, such as a

graph or chart. Obtain a screen print as evidence to prove that you have done this and

paste it into your report. What disadvantage is there from working with a snapshot of the

data in this way?

6.1. Alternative to MS Access

Microsoft Excel is another possible alternative to manage, display and process data and

present it in different formats. To manage data in the forms of table and extract

information from it, MS Excel is being used throughout worldwide.

It is very easy to pass data from MS Access to MS excel without re-entering or rekeying

it. Fig 6.1 shows how to pass data to Excel from Access

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Fig. 6.1.

By selecting Data tab in the excel and then selecting From Access as marked in the red

box on the top left corner in the will give an option pass data then data source can be

selected as below in fig 6.2 and in our case, CustomerInfo table was selected

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Fig. 6.2.

Then to display Ratio of customer lives in each in the chart Pivot Chart Option is

selected (Fig. 6.3) and then by considering total record as 100%, percentage of

customer from each town is displayed in bar chart in Fig. 6.4.

Fig. 6.3

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Fig. 6.4

Horizontal axis presents name of town and vertical axis to percentage of customer living

in them.

Fig. 6.5

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6.2. Disadvantages of working in this way

Though this method provide number of advantages. However, there are some

disadvantages as well. In above snap shots data was presented in excel so there could

be following limitation

MS Excel has limited number of rows (65536) and column so very large data

cannot be passed to it.

When passing large amount of data, file size will become very large and it require

more place in memory and file will run slow

High level knowledge of excel is required to process and extract information from

complex data

(Evans, 2014)

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Arnott, D., Jirachiefpattana, W., & O’Donnell, P. (2004). Executive information systems development in an emerging economy. Elsevier B.V., 2078– 2084.

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