Knowledge that Transforms

Toward the beginning of 1980, PRD Electronics began developing a Management Information System (MIS) which would monitor the test activity at an Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) Station. This article describes the implementation of a novel MIS development strategy and explains the circumstances that influenced the decision to prepare a user’s manual at the beginning of the system development cycle rather than at the end. The article further describes the management strategy of creating a Systems Engineering Department to exercise centralized project control and emphasizes how the generation of Activity Description Charts, and Hierarchy plus Input-Process-Output (HIPO) documentation during system development affects the productivity of project personnel by: (a) clearly understanding their individual responsibilities, and (b) knowing the relationship of their work to the overall project development goals.

At Indiana University in the late 1970’s, the demand for word processing, the burden on the University’s text processors, and the variety of commercial equipment demanded coordination. In 1978 a task force studied and made recommendations on the future of word processing throughout the corporation. As a result of these efforts, the Office of Information and Computer Services (OICS) assumed leadership and developed a small consulting team to assist users in choosing and installing word processing systems. By 1980 the consultants ’ workload and the existence of perceived needs for $1.8 million in word processing products demanded a more systematic and encompassing strategy. Therefore, OICS formed a temporary organization, the Office Systems Group, to devise objectives, policies, and implementation strategies for the 1980’s. This team needed to learn what questions to ask and how to find answers. Furthermore, because modern office technologies will not work unless people accept them, the group had to deal with the social dynamics of office units. The group did a technical study of available products and developed a self-study method to determine office needs. Today the University’s policies and strategy foster compatible systems, enable adequate maintenance, and promote staff mobility. The products chosen meet the needs of all users — teachers, students, clerical staff, professional staff, and administrators.

Any discussion of Decision Support Systems must of necessity include the MIS manager. It is crucial that the MIS manager understand the need for and the role of DSS in the full context of Information Resource Management, if a workable DSS environment is to be created. First, to facilitate this understanding, the need for DSS is established by examining the effectiveness of data processing in meeting organizational goals. Business problems and opportunities are considered in the light of typical EDP performance and a gap is identified. DSS is proposed to bridge this gap. Then decision support systems are contrasted with traditional data systems. This is accomplished by defining characteristics and objectives of classical data processing, MIS and DSS. A three-dimensional view portrays their different but complementary functions. Next, the issue of how to fit decision support systems into an organization’s information resource architecture is addressed. A conceptual organization is drawn for DSS, including office, process, classical, and telecommunications support systems. Finally, a plan of action is presented.

Organizations continue to increase their use of computers in strategic, tactical, and operational information systems. During the last few years, corporate and data processing management have often expressed concern over the potential for computer system failure and abuse. This article presents the results of a survey of data processing executives which addressed both the characteristics and quality of data processing control systems. The survey was performed as a component of a comprehensive study of the state-of-the-art of internal control in U.S corporations.

Information Systems (IS) is facing a dilemma: software is absorbing an ever-increasing proportion of the total IS budget while maintenance is absorbing an ever-increasing proportion of the software budget. In the not too distant future, unless this trend is arrested, or reversed, nearly all software resources may be required for maintenance. There are certain projected developments which give hope for the future — though not in the short term. In the meantime IS management must use other approaches, approaches that are available today, but that have been adopted very slowly. This article discusses one viable approach — the use of automated programmer productivity tools. It presents a classification of programmer productivity tools presently on the market and outlines the ways in which each class addresses productivity. It also discusses the important considerations IS management must make when evaluating the adoption of such tools.

A new computer auditing technique, called Continuous and Intermittent Simulation (CIS), is introduced. It has been specifically designed as a compliance auditing technique for timesharing systems that can be used to audit internal controls. CIS is an auditing technique that simulates the instruction execution of the application at the time the application is processing a transaction. All data and input to the application is accessible by and shared with the simulation. This means that the simulation is notified about each transaction that is entered to the application and accesses to the database by the DBMS. It is not necessary for all transactions to be audited in order to have the capability of performing online auditing. Before any updates are made to the database, or before any output is returned to the users, the simulation can verify the results by executing the appropriate instructions that evaluate the internal controls of the application. If an inconsistency is found, all pertinent information about the system’s status can be put into the exception log. The simulation can then choose to use the results computed by the application or by the simulation, or choose not to use any of the results, as if there was no transaction.