applications of MIS
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MIS Applications
Many organizations are structured based on functional areas. This is often reflected in an organizational chart. Typically, functional areas include finances, human resources, marketing, etc. Many of these functional areas have their own Management Information System, or MIS.
Financial MIS
A financial MIS provides financial information for managers to make daily decisions on operations within the organization. Most systems provide these functions:
Integrate financial information from multiple sources
Provide easy access to financial information in summarized form
Enable financial analysis using easy-to-use tools
Compare historic and current financial activity
A financial MIS often has a number of subsystems, depending on the type of organization. These include systems to analyze revenues, costs and profits, auditing systems for both internal and external purposes and systems to manage funds. A financial MIS can also be used to prepare reports for third parties, such as external auditors or shareholders.
Marketing MIS
A marketing MIS supports activities throughout the many activities of marketing departments. Some of the typical subsystems of a marketing MIS are marketing research, product development and delivery, promotion and advertising, product pricing and sales analysis.
One of the most common uses of a marketing MIS is to produce sales reports. These are typically produced on a regular schedule, such as by week, month and quarter. Reports can be organized by sales representative, product, customer or geographic area. Such reports allow managers to see which aspects of sales are doing well and which ones need attention.
Perhaps one sales representative has suddenly experienced a drop in sales by losing one major customer and needs some support to develop some new leads. If there are only a handful of sales reps sharing one office, a manager might be able to pick up on this just by talking to everyone. However, what if a manager has to oversee more than 100 sales reps in 12 different offices around the nation? A specialized information system that provides regular updates in a meaningful format will make it a lot easier for the manager to make effective decisions.
Manufacturing MIS
Manufacturing is one of the areas where information systems have made a major impact. A typical manufacturing MIS is used to monitor the flow of materials and products throughout the organization. In a manufacturing process, raw materials or parts are transformed to finished products, and a manufacturing MIS is used at every stage. Some of the common subsystems in a manufacturing MIS include: design and engineering, production scheduling, inventory control, process control and quality control.
Consider the example of building an airplane. How many different parts do you think there are in an airplane? One of those commercial jets used by the major airlines easily has over 100,000 parts. Many of those parts come from suppliers and have to be ordered. Others are made at the manufacturing plant itself. Now think of the process that is needed to get all those parts at the right place at the right time. And, all those parts have to be carefully inspected before they can be used in building the plane.
This process requires a very sophisticated system for inventory and process control. The supply of parts has to be planned carefully so it closely follows the assembly schedule. You can't have boxes of parts piling up around the plane since it would become very chaotic. And, you don't want one missing part to hold up the entire assembly process either.
Human Resources MIS
A human resources MIS is concerned with managing all the information related to employees of the organization, including previous, current and potential employees. It is also called a personnel MIS. This information system supports the many activities of a human resources department, such as workforce planning, selection and recruiting, training, task assignments and administration of salaries and benefits.
Consider the example again of building an airplane. How many different specialists are involved in the design phase, the actual assembly and the testing of the plane? Making sure the right people are available at the right times requires careful workforce planning. You do not want a lack of skilled electricians on your team to hold up your entire assembly.