Building Information Systems

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Building Information Systems

• Systems Analysis and Design
• (Based partly on Ch.10)

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• See relationship of IS development and business
  plan
• Demonstrate how IS can lead to organizational
  change
• Get exposed to main activities of the IS
  development process

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Building Information Systems

• Information Systems as part of a long-term
  business plan
• Information Systems to solve specific problems
• New Information Systems usually mean new ways of
  doing business, i.e. change
• Technical specialists and key members of the
  organization should participate
• A complex, unstructured task

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Some Definitions

• A process is a structured, measured set of
  activities designed to produce a specific output.
• A business process is a set of logically related
  tasks performed to achieve a defined business
  outcome.
• Core business processes are the ones that are
  critical for success in the industry in which the
  company operates.

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Rationalization of Procedures

• Refers to streamlining of standard operating
  procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so
  that automation makes operating procedures more
  efficient.
• Improves efficiency and effectiveness.

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Business Process Reengineering

• Refers to radical redesign of business
  processes.
• Aims at
• eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive,
  bureaucratic tasks
• reducing costs significantly,
• improving product/service quality.

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Paradigm Shift

• refers to a more radical form of change where the
  nature of business and the nature of the
  organization is questioned.
• improves strategic standing of the organization.

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Decision MakingA Five Step Model

• problem analysis
• problem understanding
• decision making
• solutions design
• implementation

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Problem Analysis

• Define problems, identify causes
• The analyst gets familiar with the organization,
  people, problems in its current form
• Following certain frameworks can help structure
  problem analysis

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Problem Understanding

• understand existing organization and system
• understand current processes, data flows, and
  organizational roles
• identify primary owners (creators) and users of
  data
• identify classes of data elements
• Following certain frameworks can help structure
  problem understanding
• process/organizational role analysis
• process/data analysis

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• propose solution alternatives
• typical alternatives
• do nothing
• improve existing system
• develop new system
• There may be many alternative new systems proposed

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Decision Making Understanding Objectives

• corporate goals
• sub-unit goals
• critical success factors (CSFs)
• operational goals that identify the success of a
  business area
• express goals in measurable terms

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Example Auto Industry

• Corporate goal improve earnings per share,
  increase market share
• Some sub-unit goals
• Competitive model designs
• CSF Better fuel consumption performance
• CSF Styling
• Competitive distribution costs
• CSF Integrated dealer network

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Decision Making Understanding Constraints

• Establish feasibility of the proposed
  alternatives
• technical feasibility Can the proposed
  alternative be implemented with available
  hardware, software and technical resources?
• economic feasibility Is the proposed alternative
  worth building? What are the costs? Benefits?
• operational feasibility Is the solution
  desirable within the managerial and
  organizational framework?

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Decision Making Choose the Best Alternative

• Synthesize all findings
• Choose the alternative among all the proposed
  ones to be in line with the objectives and
  constraints
• Keep the planning horizon in mind
• short-term?
• Long-term?

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Systems Design

• Describe the system-to-be-developed
• how it will serve the information needs of users
• Design the system
• create logical design
• create physical design

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Implementation

• Implement the solution
• develop software, install hardware, test system,
  train users
• Convert to the new system
• decide on a conversion strategy
• parallel conversion, direct cutover, pilot study,
  phased approach

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Example Behind the Movie House Database

• When customers rent tapes from Movie House, they
  pay a fixed fee, and agree to return the tapes in
  two days. If the tapes are late, customers need
  to pay a penalty based on the number of days the
  tape has been overdue. Customers are also
  supposed to leave a deposit to be returned upon
  returning the tape. The rental transaction is
  recorded manually in a notebook that is organized
  by date. Typically, the name of the customer, the
  tapes s/he rented are recorded quite informally.
  In practice, MH does not ask customers to leave
  deposits most of the time. Tapes do get lost
  every now and then, but it is hard to identify
  when and how that happens given the current
  recording mechanism. Customers do keep tapes
  more than two days, but MH never charges extra
  fees for this. Even if they wanted to, the way
  records are kept constitutes a practical barrier
  to computing the extra fees to be charged to the
  customer.

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• In deciding which tapes to buy, in what
  quantities and when, MH again acts informally.
  They have one vendor they are working with. The
  vendor sends them printed catalogs every month.
  The owners study the catalogs as they arrive.
  Every two or three months, they place an order
  with the vendor. It typically takes about three
  weeks for tapes to arrive after an order is
  placed.
• Recently, owners of MH are considering renting
  DVDs as well to improve their volume and thus
  profits. They are wondering if a database system
  is necessary before they make such a move.

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Problems at MH

• Inefficient operations
• Profit loss due to late tapes
• Profit loss due to lost tapes
• Lack of customer satisfaction?
• Poor financial management
• .

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Processes at MH

• tape rental
• deposit acceptance
• recording rental transaction
• tape return
• fee collection
• deposit return
• recording return transaction
• ordering tapes
• recording inventory
• .

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Roles in MH

• Check-out cashier
• Collection manager
• Financial manager
• ...

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MH Goals

• Maximize profits
• Improve efficiency
• Improve competitive standing
• Low costs, different products
• .

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Systems Alternative A Transaction Processing
System for MH

• A TPS that
• manages customer information on a membership
  basis,
• reflects the standing of the store at all times,
  by keeping a record of tapes that are in and
  out, and tracking the related customers (an
  online database),
• that helps check out tapes by recording the
  relevant information,
• that helps receive tapes back, compute charges
  due, print invoices,
• that updates the database by recording new tapes
  and customers whenever necessary.

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Advantages of a TPS

• efficiency
• accuracy
• improved operational control
• improved financial control
• improved decision support
• Feasibility of the TPS
• technical
• economical
• operational

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What is the best solution for MH?

• Do nothing
• improve current manual system by a revised design
  of record-keeping
• Build the TPS
• Suppose that the chosen alternative is to build
  the TPS.

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Scope of Logical Design
controls
Input content format source volume frequency timin
g
Output content format organization volume frequenc
y timing
Processing decision rules analytical
models formulas timing
Databases data items record contents relationships
procedures
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Logical Design

• Inputs
• tape info, customer info, tape requests,
  payments...
• Outputs
• membership cards, invoices...

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• Processing
• create and maintain tape records,
• create and maintain customer records,
• rent tapes, record transactions and update
  records,
• receive tapes back and update records,
• issue membership cards,
• issue invoices

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• Database
• member table
• member name, personal info, credit card no,...
• tape table
• movie name, category, rental fee,...
• transaction table
• customer info, tape info, checkout date, return
  date

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• Procedures
• record a tape when it is purchased to be rented
  in the tape file
• record a customer when he/she visits the store
  for the first time in the member file (and issue
  membership card)
• rent tapes (verify customer info, record
  transaction info in the transaction file)
• receive tapes back (record return date in the
  transaction file, compute amount due, receive
  payment, print invoice)
• ...

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• Controls
• Security controls
• user profiles
• control payments daily
• control inventory monthly
• check late tapes weekly

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Scope of Physical Design
controls
Input on-line entry scanned data voice
Processing mainframe/minicomputer/PC OS Network/te
lecomm. software
Output on-line displays hard copy audio output
Databases database model data fields table
organization
procedures
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Physical Design

• Physical design issues
• a stand-alone PC
• a DBMS (MS Access?)
• a line printer
• go over all the logical design items in physical
  detail
• Output (e.g. print cards that contain ...)
• Input (e.g. manual entry, bar codes..)
• Processing

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Database Design

• Customers Table
• field field name type size
• member number membno text 8
• member name name text 30
• member lastname lname text 30
• street address straddress text 50
• city city text 20
• zip code postcode text 5
• phone number phone text 13
• occupation occup text 20
• birth date bdate date/time
• credit card number ccard text 20
• date of membership mdate date/time

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• Movies Table
• field field name type size
• Movie ID number movieID text 4
• movie title title text 50
• releasing company company text 20
• classification category text 2
• date of release releasedate Date/Time
• rating rating text 4

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• Inventory Table
• field field name type size
• tape ID number tapeno text 4
• movie ID number movieID text 4
• date of purchase pdate Date/Time
• purchase price pprice Number (double)
• rental fee per day rentalperday Number (double)
• indicator ishere Yes/No

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• Transactions Table
• field field name type size
• transaction number ID counter
• tape ID number tapeno text 8
• member number membno text 8
• date of rental rentaldate Date/Time
• date of return returndate Date/Time

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Implementation Conversion

• (buy and/or) develop software
• install hardware
• test system
• train users
• Eventually, the organization will have to convert
  to the new system using a strategy
• direct cutover
• parallel conversion
• pilot study
• phased rollout