Page 627 - Introduction to Business

CHAPTER 17 Management Information Systems 601

according to procedures and within budgets and schedules they establish for
employees under their span of control. Information systems for operations man-
agers are called operational-level systems because they monitor the elementary operational-level systems Information
activities and transactions of the business organization. For example, they are used systems for operations managers
that monitor the elementary activities
to keep track of payroll, sales orders, materials receipts, cash deposits, and credit and transactions of a business
decisions. Operational-level systems help answer questions such as, What is the organization
inventory of a particular material? When was a certain vendor paid? How many
overtime hours did each employee work in a given day? Operational-level systems
are central to business survival. A prolonged failure of these systems could paralyze
a firm. They are also major feeders of information for the other types of information
systems.

Information Systems for Middle Managers

Middle managers develop medium-range plans and specify the policies, proce-
dures, and business goals for their business subunits. They allocate the resources
and monitor the performance of their organizational subunits, including depart-
ments, divisions, and project teams. Information systems for middle managers can
be managerial information systems or decision-support systems. Managerial managerial information systems
information systems help middle managers to plan, control, and make routine Information systems for middle
managers that help them plan, control,
decisions. They provide answers to routine questions that have been prespecified and make routine decisions
and have a predefined procedure in place to obtain the answers. For example, a
managerial information system for DaimlerChrysler could compare the sales of its
different dealers in a sales region by product line and by month.
Decision-support systems combine data with sophisticated mathematical decision-support systems Information
models and data analysis tools to help middle managers make non-routine deci- systems for middle managers that
combine data with sophisticated models
sions. Decision-support systems address problems where the procedure for and data analysis tools help them make
arriving at a solution cannot be specified in advance. They use information from non-routine decisions
operational-level systems and from managerial information systems. In addition,

Aiesha Clark, call center represen-
tative at New Jersey Manufactur-
ing Insurance Company, uses an
operational-level information sys-
tem to handle existing customer
callers in Trenton, New Jersey.

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