The company's information system has evolved over time responding to the different needs that organizations arose, in order to support the activities of a company or business.
An information system performs four activities:
Entry
It takes the data it requires to process information through inputs such as magnetic tapes, floppy drives, CDs, scanner, keyboard, and mouse.
Storage
Stores all the processed information is one of the most important activities since it can remember all the information stored either on magnetic disks or hard drives.
Prosecution
It performs the calculations according to the operation to be carried out and is carried out with the data that is stored and transforms it into information that can be used for decision-making.
Information output
Get the information processed either by printers, plotters, among others.
The information must meet the following characteristics to be useful for decision-making within the organization:
- Accuracy Comprehension Completeness Economic Confidence Relevance Level of Detail Timeliness Verifiability
Information system structure
Whitten, Bentley and Barlow propose a model based on five elementary blocks to define an information system: people, activities, data, networks and technology.
The people block encompasses system owners, users, designers and those who implement the system.
Data is the raw material used to create useful information.
The activities block includes the processes that are carried out in the company and the activities of data processes and information generation that support the former.
In the network block, the decentralization of the company and the distribution of the remaining elementary blocks in the most useful places as well as communication and coordination are analyzed.
Finally, in the technology block, it refers to both the hardware and the software that support the remaining blocks of the information system.
Information systems classification
Support to operational activities: gives rise to information systems for more structured activities (accounting applications, payroll, orders) or also systems that allow the management of structured hand information: office applications, technical programs for engineering functions.
Decision support and management control: can be provided from the business management applications themselves (through existing information outputs).
It is also common to classify systems based on the type of operation being directed: financial, human resources, marketing, etc. Although it should be noted that at present it is complex to establish rigid boundaries in the systems offered by the market.
1. Transaction processing systems
Transaction Process Systems (TPS) are those that record the data of transactions that are processed daily within organizations. They represent iterative and routine tasks that do not require a decision load and are therefore practically fully automated.
2. Information management systems
Management Information Systems (MIS) are the logical evolution of TPS, for which the hardware processing capacity was important. For these tactical level systems, the key aspect is the software that provides greater data processing to facilitate management and planning work.
3. Decision support systems
Decision Support Systems (DSS) are computer-based information systems that are capable of combining models and data to try to solve unstructured problems using a user-friendly interface.
3.1 Characteristics of DSS
Types of information: handles external information and internal information from databases
Information processing: they carry out varied analyzes with the data, relating them to different criteria.
Users: end users so they are relatively simple tools.
Autonomy: they are not independent of the user like expert systems.
Associated software: The applications are called DSS generators.
4. Information systems for executives
Executive Information Systems (EIS), are similar to DSS but with the objective that the highest level managers can permanently monitor the company as a whole.
5. Enterprise resource planning systems (ERP)
They are comprehensive information systems that allow the execution and automation of business processes in all functional areas in a coordinated manner.
These systems, which are supported by a common ICT infrastructure for the entire company, can be purchased in the form of software packages or as custom software. They require a customization process that involves time and an increase in cost, but which is essential for the proper use of these systems.
5.1 The aspects that characterize an ERP
- IntegrationModularityStandardizationGlobalityMultilevelFlexible and open
6. Supply Chain Management (SCM)
A broader and more formal concept defines supply chain management as the strategic and systematic coordination of traditional functions and methods within the company and with other companies with which it relates within the supply chain to improve the chain in yes and long-term results.
7. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems
A CRM covers several areas, strategic, organizational and technological.
It is the set of ICT tools mainly software, which will allow not only to gather all the necessary information about the client and improve their management decisions, but also to give greater access to the company with which it is intended to be identified.
With CRM applications, organizations organize certain business processes around a different axis than the usual one that can be, for example, the product. That axis, which will allow the development of the business strategy is from the CRM approach, the customer.
Some of the most important advantages of using and incorporating CRM solutions in companies are:
- Possibility of identifying business opportunities Increased quality and quantity of information Possibility of increasing sales and customer loyalty Promote change processes for improvement
8. Centralized and distributed systems
The concept of architecture is widely used in the field of ICT and we will return to it when we talk about systems development since it is key to conceptualizing the infrastructure and operation of computer-based information systems.
8.1 Centralized systems, dominant in the 1980s, are those characterized by a large central computer that contains all the data and which is accessed through terminals without any processing capacity.
In this type of system, all applications and data reside in the central computer, they are extremely efficient in processing transactions but are not very flexible. 8.2 Distributed systems. These systems are characterized by having a physical architecture made up of several computers with a large computing capacity, and for different uses to which they are connected through communication networks. These systems arose thanks to the separation of data from applications.
- A Data Warehouse is a thematically organized data warehouse that incorporates both internal and external data, and in which the information is displayed in a detailed and summarized way. Data Mining or data mining is a set of techniques and processes, which using the computers and data warehouses, conducts surveys and surveys detecting relationships to obtain relevant information that at first glance may remain hidden among the large volume of data.
9. Expert systems. It can be defined as an application that, with the help of computers, imitates human behavior, in terms of evaluating information and proposals for action, in a specific domain of knowledge.
We could say that expert systems are a concrete case of DSS decision support systems from intelligence
- The inference engine: it is dedicated to applying rules or probability models on the data base to develop logical reasoning. Knowledge acquisition interface: it allows the expert to build and update the knowledge base. Explanation interface: knowledge of how the system works and allows improvements in the consistency of its reasoning User interface: communicate with other computers to access other systems or databases Knowledge base: houses the descriptions of knowledge concepts and their relationships Data base: constitutes a temporary memory where input data is stored.
10. Systems for office work
It is the part of the information system aimed at satisfying the more individual and less structured information needs of the work of the people of an organization, which uses a set of applications that allow creating and managing: documents, individual data analysis, presentations and messages.
These types of applications are usually marketed in the form of a suite, that is, together and with high compatibility between them. Document management usually requires technical standards and procedures that serve to:
- Manage the flow of documents throughout the organization Organize and retrieve the information they contain Eliminate documents that do not serve for greater efficiency in the use of resources.
Some of the systems related to document management.
CMS (Content Management Systems)
DMS (Document Management Systems)
Compilation components: responsible for creating and collecting information.
Management component: must be responsible for the definition and control of workflows
Publication component: responsible for producing information products or final publications semi-automatically.
11. Geographic information systems (GIS)
It is a system of hardware, software and procedures developed to facilitate the obtaining, management, manipulation, analysis, modeling, representation and output of data to solve complex planning problems.
Helps answer questions: What? How? Where? And solve problems. It constitutes basic work tools in resource management. Its ability to store, retrieve, analyze, model and represent expanses of land with enormous volumes.
Bibliography
- De Pablos Heredero Carmen / López Hermoso Agius José / Medina Salgado Sonia, Organization and transformation of information systems in the company, Alfaomega, 2013, pp. 351 Gómez Vieites Álvaro, Suárez Rey Carlos, Information Systems, Alfaomega, 2012, pp. 368.
