June 22, 2009

What is MIS?

To clearly determine Management Information System or MIS, let us first define each word that builds it.

Management
Management, from the word manages or managing is described as the act of handling, controlling and directing. It is typically composed of: planning, directing, organizing and controlling.

* Planning-act of thinking in advance.
* Directing-act of supervising or telling what should be done.
* Organizing-act of logically identify each elements.
* Controlling-act of being responsible for every move.

A student making his/her own routine is an example of managing or management.

The student needs to think of the things he/she should or has to do. That is eating, taking a bath, waking up, going to school and so on. This is where planning is done.

Next, is trying to follow the said schedule. Then, organizing comes, after thinking all the things he/she would do, he/she will put them up then, assign time and a span of time to spend for each actions to do. Logically, actions are should be done as follows, waking up, taking a bath, eating then going to school etc. Arranging the actions and assigning a span of time for each thing to do are considered as organizing.

But, the student can always change his/her schedule. It may be because there is a change of her mind or she just can't follow the schedule he/she had done. Thus, the will and right of changing everything up is called controlling.

Information
The television, the books you read, the radio and the internet are just basic medium of transporting information. The information you have heard of or read can either be fact or not.

Information as described in the dictionary is knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction etc. It is also associated as a factual data. Therefore, information is simply a processed data from the people around us. A data that has been sent or given to us by talking, listening and reading. It is considered information when it reaches our mind and it can only be considered as a fact when it is supported by any other information otherwise, opposed by other information.

System
System can be defined in its simplest way as the flow. Our example above can also be taken as an example of a system. Since management, are composed of systems such as, planning, organizing, directing and controlling. Another example is baking a cake. It has steps, which is followed by another and so on.

Now, that we have clearly understood each word that composes Management Information System or MIS. We can now say that MIS is simply handling the flow of information. Information can be transmitted through talking, reading and listening. The means of the three basic elements that build up MIS, which are soft ware, hard ware and people ware are defined as technology. Information Technology defines hard ware as the computer, soft ware as the programs used to transmit data and people ware are described as programmers and the users.

* Hard wares are those physical systems. It is visible through human's eyes and can also be manipulated by human themselves.
* Soft wares are data that are build up together to show or transport information with the aid of hardware.
* People wares are the ones who manages hardware and the ones who are responsible for building, developing and using soft ware. It is the only element that can't be managed and shouldn't be managed, instead supervised.

MIS refers broadly to a computer-based system that provides managers with the tools for organizing, evaluating and efficiently running their departments. In order to provide past, present and prediction information, an MIS can include software that helps in decision making, data resources such as databases, the hardware resources of a system, decision support systems, people management and project management applications, and any computerized processes that enable the department to run efficiently (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MIS.html).

In businesses or companies, the department that handles computer systems, is called MIS department, which may mean Management Information Systems or Management Information Services. Some other companies call it IS (Information Service) or IT (Information Technology).

As from what we have learned and cited above, Management Information System or MIS is mainly and efficiently used in businesses and other large companies. It has been a huge help for managers or supervisors, since it is a new technology, it enables them to have a better decision making in less time and energy.

Before MIS had been developed, business computers are only used for computing payrolls and keeping track of receivable and payable accounts. These simple applications have evolved into many informative and helpful programs, especially when it comes to sales inventories and other data to help managing an enterprise large or small.

Today, the term is used broadly in a number of contexts and includes (but is not limited to): decision support systems, resource and people management applications, project management, and database retrieval applications (http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid80_gci214098,00.html).

Summary
Management is composed of planning, organizing, directing and controlling.
Information is data or knowledge we get around us.
System means the flow or process of some things.

Management Information System or MIS is handling the flow or process of transporting data or information. This is through hard ware, soft ware and people ware.

MIS is mainly used by businessman or managers to help in decision making, computing employees payrolls and even retrieving database application to keep track of the employees information or data as well as the customers order.

Conclusion
Hard wares can be managed by people; it can be controlled as well as soft wares. People ware may not be manageable, but they still are a part of the flow of controlling the transfer of data. They are the ones who make and develop programs, which are defined as soft wares. The hard wares are made by people too, which are the users medium to communicate with the soft ware then to the hard ware until it reaches the other users, which are also considered as people wares.

By the definition of management cited on the above entries, management includes not just controlling but also directing, which broadly means supervising or guiding and is not obliging anyone to follow the said direction.

Another thing is the ones who manage soft ware and hard ware is people ware. People ware has the biggest role when it comes to Information System, because as what from we all know, people does the data, people transmit it, people learn it and people had developed so many ways to transport data at the simplest and quickest way and even the cheapest way.

So, I believe that Management Information System is just right to be named as it is. Thus, the subject name fits the subject, which deals with planning, organizing, directing and/or controlling hard ware, soft ware, people ware.

The above statements are base on what I have understood on our supervisors and some details are from sites I have gone through. Just post a comment to correct my mistakes, if there are..^_^.. it is very much appreciated..
Thanks to www.javascriptkit.com for providing word counter for me..^_^

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