UNIT: 3

THEME:

Types of Information System

Objective:
 
Identify the various types of information systems and
its function within an organization.

Databases & Information Systems

Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 4 Levels of Information System

 Operational-level Systems
 Knowledge-level Systems
 management-level Systems
 Strategic-level Systems
Activities:
 Form 4 groups and chose a level
 Make an analysis of your level and explain its function within an
organization, including its characteristics.
 Choose 1 or 2 of your companions to present your analysis. (it can be
the group)
 Give in your work with the names of the group memebers.
 Take notes of each exposition.
 Look more information about your level for the following class.
 this work will graded at 15 points with participation (10 for the group
work and 5 for active and individual participation).
This will continue on friday

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
  Operational-level Systems
 Support operational managers by keeping track of
the elementary activities and transactions of the
organization.
 The principle purpose of systems at this level is to
answer routine questions and track the flow of
transactions through the organization.
 Covers things such as sales, receipts, cash
deposits, payroll, credit decisions, flow of
materials.

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
  Knowledge-level Systems

 Support knowledge and data workers in an

organisation.
 The purpose of these systems is to help the
organisation discover, organise and integrate new
and existing knowledge in to the business, and to
help control the flow of paperwork.
 These systems, specially in the form of
collaboration tools, workstations, and office
systems, are the fastest growing applications in
business today.

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
  Management-level Systems
Designed to serve the monitoring, controlling,
decision-making, and administrative activities
of middle managers.
 These typically provide periodic reports rather
than instant information on operations.
Some of these systems support non-routine
decision-making, focusing on less-structured
decisions for which information requirements
are not always clear. This will often require
information from outside the organisation, as
well as from normal operational-level data.
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
  Strategic-level Systems

Help senior management tackle and address

strategic issues and long-term trends, both
within the organisation and in the external
environment.
Principal concern is matching organisational
capability to changes, and opportunities,
occurring in the medium to long term (i.e. 5 -
10 years) in the external environment.

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
  Typically, an organisation might have operational,
knowledge, management and strategic level
systems for each functional area within the
organisation.
 This would be based on the management model
adopted by the organisation, so, while the most
commonly-adopted systems structure would
simply follow the standard functional model,
structures reflecting bureaucratic, product and
matrix models are also possible.
 As identified before, enterprise level information
systems attempt to encompass the whole
organisation in one system.

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 Characteristic of information
processing systems

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 Operational-level Systems
 Transaction-Processing Systems (TPS)
Basic business systems
Perform daily routine transactions necessary
for business functions
At the operational level, tasks, resources and
goals are predefined and highly structured
Generally, five functional categories are
identified, as shown in the diagram.

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 Knowledge-level Systems
 Office Automation Systems (OAS)
Targeted at meeting the knowledge needs of
data workers within the organisation
Data workers tend to process rather than create
information. Primarily involved in information
use, manipulation or dissemination.
Typical OAS handle and manage documents,
scheduling and communication.

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
  Knowledge Work Systems (KWS)
Targeted at meeting the knowledge needs of
knowledge workers within the organisation
In general, knowledge workers hold degree-
level professional qualifications (e.g. engineers,
scientists, lawyers), their jobs consist primarily
in creating new information and knowledge
KWS, such as scientific or engineering design
workstations, promote the creation of new
knowledge, and its dissemination and
integration throughout the organisation.

F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 Management-level Systems
 Management Information Systems (MIS)
MIS provide managers with reports and, in
some cases, on-line access to the organisations
current performance and historical records
Typically these systems focus entirely on
internal events, providing the information for
short-term planning and decision making.
MIS summarise and report on the basic
operations of the organisation, dependent on the
underlying TPS for their data.
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
  Decision-Support Systems (DSS)
As MIS, these serve the needs of the
management level of the organisation
Focus on helping managers make decisions that
are semi-structured, unique, or rapidly changing,
and not easily specified in advance
Use internal information from TPS and MIS, but
also information from external sources
Greater analytical power than other systems,
incorporate modelling tools, aggregation and
analysis tools, and support what-if scenarios
Must provide user-friendly, interactive tools
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 Voyage-estimating Decision Support System
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 Strategic-level Systems
 Executive Support/Information Systems
(ESS/EIS)
Serve the strategic level of the organisation
ESS/EIS address unstructured decisions and
create a generalised computing and
communications environment, rather than
providing any fixed application or specific
capability. Such systems are not designed to
solve specific problems, but to tackle a
changing array of problems
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
 ESS/EIS are designed to incorporate data about
external events, such as new tax laws or
competitors, and also draw summarised
information from internal MIS and DSS
These systems filter, compress, and track critical
data, emphasising the reduction of time and effort
required to obtain information useful to executive
management
ESS/EIS employ advanced graphics software to
provide highly visual and easy-to-use
representations of complex information and
current trends, but they tend not to provide
analytical models
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder
F21DF1: Databases & Information Systems Lachlan M. MacKinnon & Phil Trinder