Information system

Information Systems

An information system, by it's name, is a system whose aim is to collect, store and maintain data generated by the system in order to process it into accurate and timely information according to the needs of the system users.

A cross-section of a typical information system reveals that it consists of People (60%), Equipment (10%) and Procedures (30%). They can be Manual, Computerised, or a combination of both.

Manual Info Systems consist of filing cabinets, index cards, ledger books, tables of values, plus accessories such as pens, papers, calculators etc. They tend to be the simplest to set up and use, but have many limitations. These include - storing data more than once (which can lead to errors), being slow to find things, only simple searches can be made, data can be lost or mis-placed, mistakes can be made during the human processing of data.

Computerised Info Systems usually consists of a database, sometimes a spreadsheet. A File Management Syste...