Practical file On

Management Information System

Malout Institute of Management & Information Technology, Malout

(Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar)

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Ms. Amanjot Kaur Ramesh Chandra Joshi

IT-6th Semester

90500821786/737

Table of Contents

S.No. Experiments Remarks

1.

Management Information System and its functional subsystem

2.

Study of physical and conceptual structure of MIS.

3.

Study of Decision Support System, Its Users And Characteristics

4.

Study of Information System and Its Types

5.

Study of GDSS and its possible configurations

6.

Study of ERP and Its Applications

Experiment1: Management Information System and its functional subsystem

Introduction

A management information system (MIS) provides information which is needed to manage organizations efficiently and effectively. Management information systems involve three primary resources: people, technology, and information.

Management information systems are distinct from other information systems in that they are used to analyze operational activities in the organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. decision support systems, expert systems, and executive information systems.

Management information system can be analyzed thus:

1. Management: management covers the planning, control, and administration of the operations of a concern. The top management handles planning; the middle management concentrates on controlling; and the lower management is concerned with actual administration.

2. Information: information, in MIS, means the processed data that helps the management in planning, controlling and operations. Data means all the facts arising out of the operations of the concern. Data is processed i.e. recorded, summarized, compared and finally presented to the management in the form of MIS report.

3. System: data is processed into information with the help of a system. a system is made up of inputs, processing, output and feedback or control.

Thus MIS means a system for processing data in order to give proper information to the management for performing its functions.

Subsystems of an MIS

Two approaches to define subsystem are:-

1. Organizational Function Subsystem: Supports the various functions of an Organization. Ex. Marketing, Production, Personnel etc.

Major Functional Subsystems Some Uses

Marketing Information System

Sales forecasting, Sales planning, Sales analysis

Manufacturing Information System

Production planning & scheduling, cost control analysis

Personnel Information System Salary Admn., Planning HR requirement, performance

analysisAccounting Information

SystemFinancial Analysis, cost

analysis, Capital planning, etc. Logistics Information System Planning & control of

Purchasing, inventories, distribution.

Information Processing System

Planning of Information System, cost – effectiveness

analysis Top Management System Strategic Planning, resource

allocation

Fig1: Organizational Function Subsystem

2. Activity Subsystem: Supports the activity for which they are used. Ex. Transactions, Operations etc.

Activity Subsystems Some Uses

Transaction Processing System

Processing of orders, shipments, & receipts

Operational Control System Scheduling of activities and performance reports

Management Control System Formulation of Budgets & resource allocation

Strategic Planning System Formulation of Objectives & strategic plan

Fig2: Activity Subsystem

Experiment2: Study of physical and conceptual structure of MIS.

Introduction

The MIS structure has been described in terms of support for decision making, management activity and organizational functions. Management information system is an integrated system user mission system for providing information to operation mgt and decision making function is an organization.

The key concepts of MIS are:

The user mission system The concepts of an integrated system The need for a database The role of planning and decision models

Structure of MIS

1. Physical structure:

A management information system (MIS) is an organized combination of people, hardware, communication networks and data sources that collects, transforms and distributes information in an organization. An MIS helps decision making by providing timely, relevant and accurate information to managers. The physical components of an MIS include hardware, software, database, personnel and procedures.

a) Hardware: All physical components of a computer system compose the computer hardware. Important components include the central processing unit, input/output devices, storage units and communication devices. Communication can be over fiber-optic cables or wireless networks.

b) Software: Software provides the interface between users and the information system.

Software can be divided into two generic types: system software and applications. The system software comprises of the operating system, utility programs and special purpose programs. Applications are developed to accomplish a specific task. For users of MIS it is much more important to understand the software than the hardware. Software maintenance can take 50 to 70 percent of all personnel activity in the MIS function. When the organization moves to implement an advanced information system the hardware and software environment becomes more complex.

c) Database: A database is a centrally controlled collection of organized data. Central

control reduces redundancy and duplication of data. Data is stored in an organized and

structured way to facilitate sharing and improve availability to those who need it. The database improves efficiency of storage by elimination of redundant files and improves efficiency of processing by providing all required data in a single file rather than separate files. This also improves efficiency of information retrieval.

d) Procedures: Three types of procedures are required for an MIS to operate effectively:

user instructions, instructions for input preparation and operating instructions for MIS personnel who maintain the MIS.

e) Personnel: The personnel in the MIS function include computer operators,

programmers, systems analysts and managers. Human resource requirements should be assessed by considering both the present system needs and the future system growth. The quality of MIS personnel is a key factor in its effectiveness. An MIS manager needs a combination of both managerial and technical skills.

2. Conceptual structure:

The conceptual structure of MIS is defined as federation of functional subsystems, each of which is divided into 4 major information processing components:

a) Strategic planning: It is an organization process of defining its strategy and making decisions. It is the formal consideration of an organization future course. Deals in: vision & mission; methodologies; situational analysis; goal, objectives & targets.

b) Management control: It gathers and uses information to evaluate the organizational resources like human, physical, and financial. Influences the behavior of organizational resources to implement organizational strategies.

c) Transactional process: It is designed to maintain a computer system. Operation carried are interdependent, either completed successfully, or all cancelled successfully. Allows multiple individual operations to be linked together. Transactional processing principles are: methodology roll back dead locks implementation.

d) Operational control: It is inherent in command authority. It may be delegated to perform those functions of command over subordinate forces. It accomplishes the mission. It provides full authority to organize commands and forces.

Conclusion:

This structure helps in common software and in addition programs written especially for each sub-system there are common application which serves multiple functions.

Experiment3: Study of Decision Support System, Its Users And Characteristics.

Introduction

A decision support system (DSS) is a computer program application that analyzes business data and presents it so that users can make business decisions more easily. It is an "informational application" (to distinguish it from an "operational application" that collects the data in the course of normal business operation).Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would be:

Comparative sales figures between one week and the next Projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions The consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience in a context that is

described.

A decision support system may present information graphically and may include an expert system or artificial intelligence (AI). It may be aimed at business executives or some other group of knowledge workers. DSSs include knowledge based systems. A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from a combination of raw data, documents, personal knowledge, or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.

USERS:

1. Managers: A Manager is the person responsible for planning and directing the work of a group of individuals, monitoring their work, and taking corrective action when necessary. For many people, this is their first step into a management career. Managers may direct workers directly or they may direct several supervisors who direct the workers. The manager must be familiar with the work of all the groups he/she supervises, but does not need to be the best in any or all of the areas. It is more important for the manager to know how to manage the workers than to know how to do their work well. A manager may have the power to hire or fire employees or to promote them. In larger companies, a manager may only recommend such action to the next level of management. The manager has the authority to change the work assignments of team members.

2. Staff specialists: A person who specializes in or devotes himself to a particular area of activity, field of research, etc.

3. Intermediary: 1. Staff Assistant: Helping, lending aid or support, auxiliary. One who, or that which,

assists, a helper, an auxiliary, a means of help.

2. Expert Tool User: These are those who use the expert system tools.

3. Business (System) analyst: A system analyst is the person who selects and configures computer systems for an organization or business. His or her job typically begins with determining the intended purpose of the computers. This means the analyst must understand the general objectives of the business, as well as what each individual user's job requires. Once the system analyst has determined the general and specific needs of the business, he can choose appropriate systems that will help accomplish the goals of the business. When configuring computer systems for a business, the analyst must select both hardware and software. The hardware aspect includes customizing each computer's configuration, such as the processor speed, amount of RAM, hard drive space, video card, and monitor size. It may also involve choosing networking equipment that will link the computers together. The software side includes the operating system and applications that are installed on each system. The software programs each person requires may differ greatly between users, which are why it is important that the system analyst knows the specific needs of each user.

4. Group DSS Facilitator: An interactive, computer-based system that facilitates solution of unstructured problems by a set of decision-makers working together as a group. It aids groups, especially groups of managers, in analyzing problem situations and in performing group decision making tasks.

CHARACTERISTICS:

1. Provide support in semi-structured and unstructured situations. 2. Support for various managerial levels. 3. Support to individuals and groups. 4. Support to interdependent and/or sequential decisions. 5. Support all phases of the decision-making process. 6. Support a variety of decision-making processes and styles. 7. Are adaptive. 8. Have user friendly interfaces. 9. Goal is to improve the effectiveness of decision making. 10. The decision maker controls the decision-making process. 11. End-users can build simple systems. 12. . Utilizes models for analysis. 13. Provides access to a variety of data sources, formats, and types.

CONCLUSION:

Decision support systems research and development will continue to exploit any new technology developments and will benefit from progress in very large data bases, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, simulation and optimization, software engineering, telecommunications and from more basic research on behavioral topics like organizational decision making, planning, behavioral decision theory and organizational behavior.

Experiment4: Study of Information System and Its Types

Introduction

An information system and MIS (IS) - or application landscape - is any combination of information technology and people's activities that support operations, management and decision making. In a very broad sense, the term information system is frequently used to refer to the interaction between people, processes, data and technology. In this sense, the term is used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) that an organization uses, but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of business processes.

Types of Information system

1. Transaction Processing System (TPS): TPSs collect, store, modify, and retrieve the transactions of an organization. A transaction is an event that generates or modifies data that is eventually stored in an information system. To be considered a transaction

processing system the computer must pass the ACID test. The essence of a transaction program is that it manages data that must be left in a consistent state E.g. if an electronic payment is made, the amount must be both withdrawn from one account and added to the other; it cannot complete only one of those steps. Either both must occur, or neither. In case of a failure preventing transaction completion, the partially executed transaction must be 'rolled back' by the TPS. While this type of integrity must be provided also for batch transaction processing, it is particularly important for online processing: E.g. an airline seat reservation system is accessed by multiple operators, after an empty seat inquiry, the seat reservation data must be locked until the reservation is made, otherwise another user may get the impression a seat is still free while it is actually being booked at the time. Without proper transaction monitoring, double bookings may occur. Other transaction monitor functions include deadlock detection and resolution (deadlocks may be inevitable in certain cases of cross-dependence on data), and transaction logging (in 'journals') for 'forward recovery' in case of massive failures.

2. Management information System (MIS): A management information system (MIS) provides information which is needed to manage organizations efficiently and effectively.

Management information systems involve three primary resources: people, technology, and information or decision making. Management information systems are distinct from other information systems in that they are used to analyze operational activities in the organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. decision support systems, expert systems, and executive information systems.

3. Decision Support System (DSS): A decision support system (DSS) is a computer-based information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations, and planning levels of an organization and help to make decisions, which may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance.

DSSs include knowledge-based systems. A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from a combination of raw data, documents, personal knowledge, or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.

4. Executive Information System (EIS): An executive information system (EIS) is a type of management information system intended to facilitate and support the information and decision-making needs of senior executives by providing easy access to both internal and external information relevant to meeting the strategic goals of the organization. It is commonly considered as a specialized form of decision support system (DSS).

The emphasis of EIS is on graphical displays and easy-to-use user interfaces. They offer strong reporting and drill-down capabilities. In general, EIS are enterprise-wide DSS that help top-level executives analyze, compare, and highlight trends in important variables so that they can monitor performance and identify opportunities and problems. EIS and data warehousing technologies are converging in the marketplace.

Conclusion

Information and information systems in organization faced a revolutionary change in the last few decades. Today, many organizations are using information and information system as a tool for gaining competitive advantage.

Experiment5: Study of GDSS and its possible configurations

Introduction

GDSS: Group Decision Support System An interactive computer-based system that facilitates solution of unstructured problems by a set of decision makers working together as a group. It aids groups, especially groups of managers, in analyzing problem situations and in performing group decision making tasks. Group Support Systems has come to mean computer software and hardware used to support group functions and processes. Characteristics of GDSS

1. Special Design 2. Ease of use 3. Specific and general support 4. Suppressing negative group behavior 5. Supporting positive group behavior

Advantages of GDSS

i. Anonymity – drive out fear leading to better decisions from a diverse hierarchy of decision makers

ii. Parallel Communication – eliminate monopolizing providing increased participation, better decisions

iii. Automated record keeping – no need to take notes, they’re automatically recorded iv. Ability for virtual meetings – only need hardware, software and people connected v. Portability - Can be set up to be portable… laptop

vi. Global Potential - People can be connected across the world vii. No need for a computer guru – although some basic experience is a must

Disadvantages of GDSS

i. Cost –infrastructure costs to provide the hardware and software/room/network connectivity can be very expensive

ii. Security – especially true when companies rent the facilities for GDSS; also, the facilitator may be a lower level employee who may leak information to peers

iii. Technical Failure – power loss, loss of connectivity, relies heavily on bandwidth and LAN/WAN infrastructure – properly setup system should minimize this risk

iv. Keyboarding Skills – reduced participation may result due to frustration v. Training – learning curve is present for users, varies by situation

vi. Perception of messages – lack of verbal communication could lead to misinterpretation

Case of GDSS implementation

(Aiken et al., 1995; Jackson et al., 1995) is IBMs deployment of GDSS:

A plant manager was having trouble identifying problems hindering shop- floor control. His subordinates seemed unable to isolate causes of the problem. A two hour meeting of six key plant personnel had resulted in a number of arguments but no solutions to the problem. The manager decided to use Team Focus to find the problems and develop a plan of action to improve the shop-floor control process. Ten employees were invited to join the manager and two junior analysts to investigate the problem. The participants used the Electronic Brainstorming program for 35 minutes and generated 645 lines of comments about improving shop- floor control. For the first time, the manager was able to get concrete, meaningful answers to questions associated with shop floor control problem. Next, they used Issue Analyzer for 30 minutes to identify major issues related to shop- floor control. In the following 45 minutes, the 645 lines of comments were organized into the identified key categories. Then each group member used the Vote program to rank the requirements based on importance to improved shop floor control.

The accumulated results were displayed to the group, and, after 10 minutes of discussion, the meeting was concluded. In a little more than two hours the manager had a printout of all of the group’s comments and a consolidated list of requirements that were prioritized by the groups vote. This successful IBM experience yields the following observations:

GDSS is more effective than face-to-face (FTF) discussion. FTF resulted in no solutions while GDSS did.

GDSS is more timesaving. In a little more than 2 hours, the manager had hundreds of suggestions and comments that were rated and ordered while FTF used the same amount of time but generated nothing specific and useful.

The quality of decisions generated through GDSS is better than that generated from FTF discussion.

Conclusion

GDSS focus the efforts of group members toward the task, or problem to be solved by the group. GDSS increase the overall quality of effort put in the decision process by the group. GDSS increase consensus reaching.

Experiment6: Study of ERP and Its Applications Introduction The elaboration of ERP is Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a way to integrate the data and processes of an organization into one single system. Usually ERP systems will have many components including hardware, software, and their combination in order to achieve integration, most ERP systems use a unified database to store data for various functions found throughout the Orgnasation.

The term ERP originally referred to how a large organization planned to use organizational wide resources. A few days ago ERP systems were used in larger more industrial types of companies. However, the use of ERP has changed and is extremely comprehensive, today the term can refer to any type of company, no matter what industry it falls in. In fact, ERP systems are used in almost any type of organization - large or small. In order for a software system to be considered ERP, it must provide an organization with functionality for two or more systems. While some ERP packages exist that only cover two functions for an organization such as QuickBooks: Payroll & Accounting etc., most ERP systems cover several functions. In present ERP systems can cover a wide range of functions and integrate them into one unified database. For example, functions such as Human Resources, Supply Chain Management,

Customer Relations Management, Financials, Manufacturing functions and Warehouse Management functions were all once standalone software applications, usually housed with their own database and network. Integration is required Key to ERP Integration is an most important part to ERP's. ERP's main objective is to integrate data and processes from all areas of an organization and unify it for easy access and work flow. ERP's usually accomplish integration by building one single database that employs multiple software modules providing different areas of an organization with various business functions. However the expert configuration would be one ERP system for an entire organization, many larger organizations usually create and ERP system and then build upon the system and external interface for other standalone systems which might be more powerful and perform better in fulfilling an organization’s needs. Usually this type of configuration can be time consuming and does require lots of labor hours. An expert ERP system is when a single database is utilized and contains all data for various software modules. These software modules can include:

1. Manufacturing: Some of the functions include; engineering, capacity, workflow management, quality control, bills of material, manufacturing process, etc.

2. Financials: Accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, general ledger and cash management, etc.

3. Human Resources: Benefits, training, payroll, time and attendance, etc 4. Supply Chain Management: Inventory, supply chain planning, supplier scheduling,

claim processing, order entry, purchasing, etc. 5. Projects: Costing, billing, activity management, time and expense, etc. 6. Customer Relationship Management: sales and marketing, service, commissions,

customer contact, calls center support, etc. 7. Data Warehouse: Usually this is a module that can be accessed by an organizations

customers, suppliers and employees.