Describe the characteristics of MIS and explain how MIS differ from TPS and from DSS.
Middle management needs systems to help with monitoring, controlling, decision-making, and administrative activities.
MIS provide middle managers with reports on the organization’s current performance. This information is used to monitor and control the business and predict future performance.
MIS summarize and report the company’s basic operations using data supplied by TPSs. The basic transaction data from TPS are compressed and usually presented in reports that are produced on a regular schedule.
MIS serve managers primarily interested in weekly, monthly, and yearly results, although some MIS enable managers to drill down to see daily or hourly data if required.
MIS generally provide answers to routine questions that have been specified in advance and have a predefined procedure for answering them.
MIS systems generally are not flexible and have little analytical capability.
Most MIS use simple routines, such as summaries and comparisons, as opposed to sophisticated mathematical models or statistical techniques.
Examples include sales and profit per customer and per region, relocation summary and analysis, inventory control, capital investment analysis, and even a report on students who were here in the autumn but did not to return in the spring.
MIS differs from TPS in that MIS deals with summarized and compressed data from the TPS.
While MIS have an internal orientation, DSS will often use data from external sources, as well as data from TPS and MIS. DSS supports “what-if” analyses rather than a long-term structured analysis of MIS. MIS are generally not flexible and provide little analytical capabilities. In contrast, DSS are designed for analytical purposes and are flexible.