Subsystems of MIS

Management information system (MIS) refers to the processing of information through computers and other intelligent devices to manage and support managerial decisions within an organization.

MIS: Management Information System can be defined as “a system providing management with accurate and timely information necessary to facilitate the decision-making process and enable the organizations planning, control, and operational functions to be carried out effectively”.

Subsystems of MIS

Systems may consist of numerous sub-systems, each of which has elements, interactions, and objectives. Subsystems perform specialized tasks related to the overall objectives of the total system.

A system exists on more than one level and can be composed of subsystems or element parts.

Following are the subsystems of Management Information System:

• Transaction Processing System
• Management Reporting System
• Decision Support System
• Office Information System
• Business Expert System

Transaction processing systems

A firm’s transaction processing systems (TPS) comprise the routine, day-to-day accounting operations that have been an important part of most firms’ computer processing since the early 1950s. These “paperwork processing” operations many of which provide linkages among the customer, organization, warehouse, and factory in accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory control, and many other operations. Activities comprising the transaction processing function, and the relationship of these activities to each other.

• A TPS records internal and external transactions for a company.
• A TPS performs routine and repetitive tasks. It is mostly used by lower-level managers to make operational decisions.
• Transactions can be recorded in batch mode or online. In batch mode files are updated periodically; and in online mode, each transaction is recorded as it occurs.
• TPS is a six-step process: Data entry, Data capture, Data validation, Processing and re-validation, Storage, Output generation, and Query support.

Management reporting systems

 A management reporting system (MRS) may generate the preplanned printed reports that began to evolve in the 1960s terns for decision-making purposes. As mentioned earlier, reports produced    These through an MRS are commonly by-products of the extensive and detailed rest databases assembled by transaction processing systems. Typically, the facts contained in these reports consist of routine summary and exception information about organizational operations. Another term that has been used the quite commonly for this type of system is information reporting system (IRS).

• MRSs are usually developed by information system professionals, rather than by end users.
• MRSs are oriented towards reporting on the past and the present, rather than projecting the future.
• MRSs largely report on internal company operations.
• MRSs generally have limited analytical capabilities.
• MRSs do not directly support the decision-making process
• MRSs provide Scheduled or Periodic Reports, Exception Reports, and Demand or Ad-hoc Report.

Decision Support system

(DSS) provides a set of easy-to-use modeling, retrieving, and reporting capabilities so that people can generate the information they feel will be useful for them when making decisions. For instance, a DSS might allow a manager to sit at an interactive terminal and browse through data, analyze them, and create specially tailored reports.

Rather than consisting of a semi-frozen set of data or information outputs, as the TPS and MRS do, the DSS provides tools for enhancing user decision making. Further development of the DSS, coupled with the trend toward networking personal computers, have resulted in group decision support systems (GDSS) that support the activities and decision making of entire work teams.

• DSSs support for decision-makers in semi-structured and unstructured problems.
• DSSs are more focused on specific decision rather than routine flows of information.
• DSS present information graphically and may include an expert system or artificial intelligence.
• DSSs are adaptive over time.

Office information System

An office information system, or OIS (pronounced oh-eye-ess), is an information system that uses hardware, software and networks to enhance work flow and facilitate communications among employees.  Win an office information system, also described as office automation; employees perform tasks electronically using computers and other electronic devices, instead of manually.  With an office information system, for example, a registration department might post the class schedule on the Internet and e-mail students when the schedule is updated.  In a manual system, the registration department would photocopy the schedule and mail it to each student’s house.

An office information system supports a range of business office activities such as creating and distributing graphics and/or documents, sending messages, scheduling, and accounting.  All levels of users from executive management to no management employees utilize and benefit from the features of an OIS.

The software an office information system uses to support these activities include word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentation graphics, e-mail, Web browsers, Web page authoring, personal information management, and groupware.  Office information systems use communications technology such as voice mail, facsimile (fax), videoconferencing, and electronic data interchange (EDI) for the electronic exchange of text, graphics, audio, and video.  An office information system also uses a variety of hardware, including computers equipped with modems, video cameras, speakers, and microphones; scanners; and fax machines.

Business Expert System

A Business Expert System (BES) is a knowledge-based information system, which is based on artificial intelligence. A Knowledge Based information system adds a knowledge base that uses its knowledge about a specific, complex application area to act as an expert.

Also, BES provides decision support to managers in the form of advice from an expert in a specific problem area such as medical, engineering and business. BES is interactive in nature and it is able to answer the questions asked by a user. For answering the questions, an expert system searches its knowledge base for facts and rules and explains its reasoning process and results in the expert advice to the end user. The main components of BES are:

• Knowledge base
• Inference engine
• User interface