What are the 7 disadvantages

to a manual system?
Manual systems put pressure on people to be correct in all details of
their work at all times, the problem being that people arent perfect,
however much each of us wishes we were. With manual systems the
level of service is dependent on individuals and this puts a requirement
on management to run training continuously for staff to keep them
motivated and to ensure they are following the correct procedures. It
can be all to easy to accidentally switch details and end up with
inconsistency in data entry or in hand written orders. This has the effect
of not only causing problems with customer service but also making
information unable be used for reporting or finding trends with data
discovery. Reporting and checking that data is robust can be timely and
expensive. This is often an area where significant money can be saved
by automation.

It takes more effort and physical space to keep track of paper documents,
to find information and to keep details secure. When mistakes are made
or changes or corrections are needed, often a manual transaction must be
completely redone rather than just updated. With manual or partially
automated systems information often has to be written down and copied
or entered more than once. Systemisation can reduce the amount of
duplication of data entry.
Another impact of manual systems is on Customer service. Customer
queries can be difficult to respond to as information is stored in different
places and may even require that you find the right person before being
able to respond. This is no good if they are out to lunch or only work
part time.

1. Inconsistency in data entry, room for errors,

miskeying information.

2. Large ongoing staff training cost.

3. System is dependent on good individuals.

4. Reduction in sharing information and customer

services.

5. Time consuming and costly to produce reports.

6. Lack of security.

7. Duplication of data entry.

Which raises the question if systemisation has such benefits, why arent
all business running fully integrated systems. There is always the
obvious balance of cost vs benefit, as an organisation grows and adds
people and functions the benefits of systems increases. Often when an
organisation is growing its the time that they need to put in a new
system, however this is also the time that there is significant pressure on
existing resources and its the hardest time to make a change.
History:
Kenneth and Aldrich Estel identify six eras of Management Information System evolution
corresponding to the five phases in the development of computing technology:[3]

1. mainframe and minicomputer computing,

2. personal computers,

3. client/server networks,

4. enterprise computing, and

5. cloud computing.
The first era (mainframe and minicomputer) was ruled by IBM and their mainframe computers; these
computers would often take up whole rooms and require teams to run themIBM supplied the
hardware and the software. As technology advanced, these computers were able to handle greater
capacities and therefore reduce their cost. Smaller, more affordable minicomputers allowed larger
businesses to run their own computing centers in-house / on-site / on-premises.
The second era (personal computer) began in 1965 as microprocessors started to compete with
mainframes and minicomputers and accelerated the process of decentralizing computing power from
large data centers to smaller offices. In the late 1970s, minicomputer technology gave way to
personal computers and relatively low-cost computers were becoming mass market commodities,
allowing businesses to provide their employees access to computing power that ten years before
would have cost tens of thousands of dollars. This proliferation of computers created a ready market
for interconnecting networks and the popularization of the Internet. (NOTE that the first
microprocessor a four-bit device intended for a programmable calculator was introduced in
1971 and microprocessor-based systems were not readily available for several years. The MITS
Altair 8800 was the first commonly known microprocessor-based system, followed closely by the
Apple I and II. It is arguable that the microprocessor-based system did not make significant inroads
into minicomputer use until 1979, when VisiCalc prompted record sales of the Apple II on which it
ran. The IBM PC introduced in 1981 was more broadly palatable to business, but its limitations gated
its ability to challenge minicomputer systems until perhaps the late 1980s to early 1990s.)
As technological complexity increased and costs decreased, the need to share information within an
enterprise also grewgiving rise to the third era (client/server), in which computers on a common
network access shared information on a server. This lets thousands and even millions of people
access data simultaneously. The fourth era (enterprise) enabled by high speed networks, tied all
aspects of the business enterprise together offering rich information access encompassing the
complete management structure. Every computer is utilized.
The fifth era (cloud computing) is the latest and employs networking technology to deliver
applications as well as data storage independent of the configuration, location or nature of the
hardware. This, along with high speed cellphone and Wi-Fi networks, has led to new levels of
mobility in which managers may access the MIS remotely with laptops, tablet
computers and smartphones.
ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION
The MIS represents the electronic automation of several different kinds of counting,
tallying, record-keeping, and accounting techniques of which the by far oldest, of
course, was the ledger on which the business owner kept track of his or her business.
Automation emerged in the 1880s in the form of tabulating cards which could be sorted
and counted. These were the punch-cards still remembered by many: they captured
elements of information keyed in on punch-card machines; the cards were then
processed by other machines some of which could print out results of tallies. Each card
was the equivalent of what today would be called a database record, with different areas
on the card treated as fields. World-famous IBM had its start in 1911; it was then called
Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. Before IBM there was C-T-R. Punch cards
were used to keep time records and to record weights at scales. The U.S. Census used
such cards to record and to manipulate its data as well. When the first computers
emerged after World War II punch-card systems were used both as their front end
(feeding them data and programs) and as their output (computers cut cards and other
machines printed from these). Card systems did not entirely disappear until the 1970s.
They were ultimately replaced by magnetic storage media (tape and disks). Computers
using such storage media speeded up tallying; the computer introduced calculating
functions. MIS developed as the most crucial accounting functions became
computerized.

Waves of innovation spread the fundamental virtues of coherent information systems

across all corporate functions and to all sizes of businesses in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.
Within companies major functional areas developed their own MIS capabilities; often
these were not yet connected: engineering, manufacturing, and inventory systems
developed side by side sometimes running on specialized hardware. Personal
computers ("micros," PCs) appeared in the 70s and spread widely in the 80s. Some of
these were used as free-standing "seeds" of MIS systems serving sales, marketing, and
personnel systems, with summarized data from them transferred to the "mainframe." In
the 1980s networked PCs appeared and developed into powerful systems in their own
right in the 1990s in many companies displacing midsized and small computers.
Equipped with powerful database engines, such networks were in turn organized for
MIS purposes. Simultaneously, in the 90s, the World Wide Web came of age, morphed
into the Internet with a visual interface, connecting all sorts of systems to one another.
Midway through the first decade of the 21st century the narrowly conceived idea of the
MIS has become somewhat fuzzy. Management information systems, of course, are still
doing their jobs, but their function is now one among many others that feed information
to people in business to help them manage. Systems are available for computer
assisted design and manufacturing (CAD-CAM); computers supervise industrial
processes in power, chemicals, petrochemicals, pipelines, transport systems, etc.
Systems manage and transfer money worldwide and communicate worldwide. Virtually
all major administrative functions are supported by automated system. Many people
now file their taxes over the Internet and have their refunds credited (or money owning
deducted) from bank accounts automatically. MIS was thus the first major system of the
Information Age. At present the initials IT are coming into universal use. "Information
Technology" is now the category to designate any and all software-hardware-
communications structures that today work like a virtual nervous system of society at all
levels.