Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Welcome Fourteenth Lecture for ITEC A Professor G.E. Denzel

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Agenda  Point to tutorials on CSS  Some last ideas from Chapter 9 on ‘integrated systems’  Material relevant to Chapter 10 in text, dealing with various Decision Support Systems

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Agenda  A hierarchy of different levels of systems  EOQ (straightforward inventory management)  MRP (Materials Requirements Planning)  MRPII (integrates MRP with Finance, HR, etc)  SCM (Supply Chain Management)  ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Integrated Information Systems  Reasons for Integration  Existing, functionally oriented information systems are deficient: cannot give employees all the information they need do not let different departments communicate effectively crucial sales, inventory, and production data often entered manually into separate computer systems

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Integrated Information Systems  How to Integrate Information Systems  Connect existing systems maximize the use of existing systems and allows the addition of new applications  Using supply chain management software Overcomes the isolation of traditional departmental structure by integrating processing across several functional areas  Use Enterprise Resource Planning software control all major business processes with a single software architecture in real time increased efficiency to improve quality, productivity, and profitability

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 What do Managers do?  Make decisions in the process of achieving goals  Interpersonal roles: figurehead, leader, liaison  Informational roles: monitor, disseminator, spokesperson  Decisional roles: entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Why Do Managers Need IT Support?  Volume of available information is staggering  Manually processing information quickly is increasingly difficult  Computerized modeling helps manage complexity  examine numerous alternatives very quickly  provide a systematic risk analysis

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Data, Information, and Knowledge

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Data Sources  Internal Data  Personal Data  External Data  Data Collection Methods  Manually  By instruments and sensors  Scanning or electronic transfer Where do we get the data we need?

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Data Quality  quality determines the data’s usefulness as well as the quality of the decisions based on these data  an extremely important issue  characteristics of high quality data: accurate, secure, relevant, timely, complete, and consistent What is ‘good’ data?

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Data Storage  Databases or in data warehouse and data marts  Data Management difficulties  Data volume exponentially increases with time  Many methods and devices used to collect data  Raw data stored many places and ways  only small portions of data are relevant for specific situations  More and more external data  Different legal requirements relating to data  Difficulty selecting data management tools  Data security, quality, and integrity are essential Data Storage and Management

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Document Management Systems  Much data is contained in documents  DMS manage electronic documents  Provide control over and access to documents within organization  Imaging systems, workflow software, and databases are utilized to efficiently capture and control documents

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Business Intelligence  Ultimate goal of collecting data is to provide a foundation for business intelligence  All data needed for sound decisions  Data is drawn from data warehouses or data marts  Data analysis tools are applied  Decision makers ’ judgment is augmented with facts, analysis, and forecasts

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Capabilities of a DSS (1)  Supports  Problem solving phases  Different decision frequencies Frequency lowhigh Merge with another company? How many widgets should I order?

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Decision Making as a Component of Problem Solving Intelligence Design Choice Implementation Monitoring Problem solving Decision making

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Decision Making Process  Intelligence Phase Design Phase Choice Phase  REALITY Implementation of Solution Implementation of Solution SUCCESS FAILURE Verification, Testing of Proposed Solution Validation of the Model Examination

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Decision Support Systems supply computerized support for the decision making process  End-users actively work with the data warehouse  End-users apply models to represent, understand, and simplify the decision situation Decision Making Process (continued)

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Model - simplified representation of reality  Iconic (scale) models physical replica of a system  Analog models Behaves like real system; does not look like it  Mathematical (quantitative) model models complex relationships and conducts experimentations with them  Mental models how a person thinks about a situation What do we mean by ‘model’?

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  A Framework for Computerized Decision Support  Problem Structure decision making processes fall along a continuum that ranges from highly structured to highly unstructured decisions  Nature of Decisions strategic planning - the long-range goals and policies for resource allocation management control - the acquisition and efficient utilization of resources in the accomplishment of organizational goals operational control - the efficient and effective execution of specific tasks Thinking about decisions…

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 Decision Support Framework

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Structured decisions have long been supported by computers  Classes of structured decisions have been addressed mathematically with Management Science models  Define the problem  Classify the problem into a standard category  Construct a standard mathematical model  Find potential solutions  Choose and recommend a specific solution Thinking about decisions…

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Needed when decision is not structured  Characteristics and Capabilities  Support decision makers at all managerial levels  Support several interdependent and/or sequential decisions  Support all phases of decision making and a variety of decision-making processes and styles  Can be adapted over time to deal with changing conditions  Easy to construct  Utilizes models and links to data- and knowledge bases  Execute sensitivity analysis Decision Support Systems

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Sensitivity Analysis  the study of the effect that changes in one or more parts of a model have on other parts of the model  What-if Analysis  checks the impact of a change in the assumptions or other input data on the proposed solution  Goal-seeking Analysis  find the value of the inputs necessary to achieve a desired level of output DSS (continued)

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Components and Structure of DSS  Data Management Includes the database(s) containing relevant data for the decision situation  User Interface Enables the users to communicate with and command the DSS  Model Management Includes software with financial, statistical, management science, or other quantitative models  Knowledge Management Provides knowledge for solution of the problem; supports any of the other subsystems or act as an independent component DSS (continued)

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 DSS (continued)

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Executive Information Systems  Meet information needs of executives Very limited time Need to monitor and identify problematic trends Need external as well as internal information  Rapid access to data needed to executives  Very easy user interface  Highly graphical  Often connected with online information services (e.g., Dow Jones News Retrieval)  Incorporates Enterprise Decision Support

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Executive Information Systems (continued)  Capabilities of EIS Drill down Critical success factors and key performance indicators Status access Trend analysis Ad hoc analysis Exception reporting Intelligent EIS Integration with DSS; web accessibility Enterprise Decision Support

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Analyzed data can be even more useful if presented using Data Visualization techniques  Visual Interactive Modeling – graphic display of decision consequences  Visual Interactive Simulation – simulation model is animated and can be viewed and modified by decision maker  Geographic Information Systems – display data related to geographic location using digitized maps Data Visualization

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002 GIS Examples

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Group Decision Support Systems  Facilitate solution of semistructured and unstructured decisions by a group of decision makers  Help the group be productive by mitigating some negative group behaviors  Support the group’s process by encouraging idea generation, improving communication, and applying analytical tools as needed to the problem Enterprise Decision Support

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  GDSS Implementations  Face-to-face meetings – special ‘decision room’ created with linked computers and GDSS software; use is facilitated by trained leader  Corporate ‘war room’ – information displayed graphically and analyses conducted for all to see  Support for virtual teams – collaborative team tools for geographically dispersed teams; support discussion, calendars, polling, etc. Enterprise Decision Support

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Analytical Processing - the activity of analyzing accumulated data  Online analytical processing (OLAP)  An end-user activity  Involves large data sets with complex relationships  Uses Decision Support Systems models  Is retrospective What can we do with the stored data?

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Analysis by end users from their desktop, online, using tools like spreadsheets  Analyze the relationships between many types of business elements  Involve aggregated data  Compare aggregated data over hierarchical time periods (monthly, quarterly, annually)  Present data in different perspectives  Involve complex calculations between data elements  Respond quickly to users requests Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Data mining – intelligent search of data stored in data marts or warehouses  Find predictive information  Discover unknown patterns  End users perform mining tasks with very powerful tools  Mining tools apply advanced computing techniques (learning, intelligence) What can we do with the stored data?

Faculty of Arts Atkinson College ITEC 1010 A F 2002  Ethical Issues  Valuable data-mined information may violate individual privacy  Who is accountable for incorrect decisions that are based on DSS?  Human judgment is fallible  Job loss due to automated decision making?  Legal Issues  Discrimination based on data mining results  Data security from external snooping or sabotage  Data ownership of personal data Data Mining and Analysis Concerns