Who is Systems Analyst? A systems analyst is a person who conducts a study, identifies activities and objectives and determines a procedure to achieve the objectives. Designing and implementing systems to suit organizational needs are the functions of the systems analyst He plays a major role in seeing business benefit from computer technology. The analyst is a person with unique skills. He uses these skills to coordinate the efforts of different type of persons in an organisation to achieve business goals. What a Systems Analyst does? A system analyst carries out the following job: The First and perhaps most difficult task of systems analyst is problem definition. Business problems are quite difficult to define. It is also true that problems cannot be solved until they are precisely and clearly defined. Initially a systems analyst does not know how to solve a specific problem. He must consult with managers, users and Continue reading
Management Information Systems
Decision Support Systems (DSS) – Meaning, Types, and Components
Decision Support Systems (DSS) help executives make better decisions by using historical and current data from internal Information Systems and external sources. By combining massive amounts of data with sophisticated analytical models and tools, and by making the system easy to use, they provide a much better source of information to use in the decision-making process. Decision Support Systems (DSS) are a class of computerized information systems that support decision-making activities. DSS are interactive computer-based systems and subsystems intended to help decision makers use communications technologies, data, documents, knowledge and/or models to successfully complete decision process tasks. While many people think of decision support systems as a specialized part of a business, most companies have actually integrated this system into their day to day operating activities. For instance, many companies constantly download and analyze sales data, budget sheets and forecasts and they update their strategy once they analyze and evaluate Continue reading
Computer Storage Fundementals and Devices
Data and information must be stored until needed using a variety of storage methods. There are many types of storage media and devices. Computer Storage Fundamentals Data are processed and stored in a computer system through the presence or absence of electronic or magnetic signals in the computer’s circuitry or in the media it uses. This is called a “two-state” or binary representation of data, since the computer and the media can exhibit only two possible states or conditions. For example, transistors other semiconductor circuits are either in a conducting or nonconducting state. Media such as magnetic disks and tapes indicate these two states by having magnetized spots whose magnetic fields have one of two different directions, or polarities. This binary characteristic of computer circuitry and media is what makes the binary number system the basis for representing data in computers. Thus, for electronic circuits, the conducting (ON) state represents Continue reading
Case Study on Information Systems: Brown and Gordon Auto parts
Brown and Gordon Auto parts (B&G) is the third largest auto parts manufacturer in the world. It is an autonomously run division of a large conglomerate, RST, Inc. Their head quarters and principal manufacturing facilities are in Cleveland, Ohio, but they operate plant in East Chicago, Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, and South Bend, Indiana. Total annual revenues are close to $2 billion, but profits were reduced dramatically in 1989 and 1990 because of the recession and particularly because of the decline in automobile sales. Plant capacity has dropped to 60%, with a slight pickup in the fourth quarter of this year. (RST, Inc. has turned in record profits in the same two years, with all divisions save B&G performing beyond plan) Most of B&G’s management teams are on-line managers who have proven themselves in operational jobs and have worked their way up in hierarchy. They don’t believe Continue reading
Feasibility Analysis in System Development Process
Most organizations find it beneficial to use a set of steps, called a system development methodology, to develop and support their information system. Like many processes, the development of information system often follows a life cycle. The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a common methodology for system development in many organizations, featuring various phases that mark the progress of the system analysis and design effort. Read More : System Development Life Cycle Analysis is the third phase of Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). During this phase, the analysis has several sub-phases which can be discussed as given below; The first is requirements determination. In this sub-phase, analysts work with users to determine the expectations of users from the proposed system. This sub-phase usually involves a careful study of current systems, manual or computerized that might be replaced or enhanced as part of this project. Next, the requirements are studied Continue reading
CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) Tools
CASE is an acronym for computer Aided Engineering. This involves using software packages to accomplish and automate many of the activities of the information system development including software development or programming. Building Blocks Computer Aided Software Engineering can be a single tool that supports a specific Software Engineering activity to complex environment that encompasses tools, a data of people, hardware, network operating system standards and other components i.e. environment architecture composed of hardware platform and operating system support lays the ground work for CASE. But the CASE environment itself needs other building blocks. A set of portability services provides a bridge between CASE tools and their integration framework and the environment architecture. The integration framework is a collection of specialized programs that enables collection of specialized programs that enables individual’s CASE tools to communicate with one another, to create a project database and to exhibit the same look and Continue reading