Analysis And Design Of An Is

The analysis and design of an information system, done well, often eliminates jobs in a company. Economic theory strongly supports the creation of new jobs when this happens, but generally there is a time lag between the loss and creation of jobs. Support or contradict this theory.

A well defined and implemented informational system can eliminate positions within a company. Usually, this is due to a number of factors, including efficiency and redundancy. An information system is only as good as it was developed to be. Quite often, those involved with the development of the new information system, are the very ones whose jobs are on the line.

A traditional paper Informational System consists of a myriad of complex filing and organizing skills. Many office workers have spent their entire lives developing ways to efficiently store and retrieve data, found in paper format. Books have been even been written on the subject. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on organizing paper. Even today, many companies are still relying on 'wet copy' forms to be stored and archived. These archaic systems once employed tens of thousands of workers to organize and store documents for archival and retrieval methods.

Banks are a great example. At one time checks were written by a customer (1) to pay for some debt or service. That check was taken to the depositor's bank and presented to a teller (2). The teller would accept the check for deposit into the payee's account. The check would be organized with other checks drawn from the same bank (3). A telephone message would be generated (4), and sent (5) to the respected banks with all of the checks presented from that day tallied up. The payor's bank would receive the message (6) and process (7) it. The payor's bank (8) will verify whether or not the payee has sufficient funds to cover the check written against it. If so, the payor's bank (9) wires over the appropriate amount of money from the payor's account to the payee's bank (10). This is verified (11) and the proper amount is now deposited into the payee's account (12). The paper check now has to be bundled up (13) with other checks from the same bank and mailed (14) to the payor's bank. The payor's bank then receives the check (15) verifies the amount and the amount of money sent (16) subtracts the amount to the customer's account (17), stores the paper check (18) until the end of the month, where the payor's account is reconciled (19) and the cancelled paper check is then returned to the Payor in a monthly statement (20).

In my above example, there were at least 20 people involved with the payment of a debt through a banking institution. Not included above, was personnel to store, retrieve, and possibly copy the paper checks. Not to mention the elaborate system of managing the accounts themselves.

With the introduction of an efficient electronic managed information system, the number of personnel to perform this chain of events can be greatly reduced. The Payor (1) writes a check to the Payee (2), who deposits it with a teller (3) at a bank. The teller electronically withdraws funds from the payor's bank and makes a deposit to the payee's account. The check is scanned into a database by the teller and compiled electronically into a ledger. The electronic ledger is sent daily, automatically to each bank the branch has accepted checks from. The bank then organizes (4) and sends off (5), by courier (6) or mail, the paper checks to their respected banks. The Payor's bank, electronically, reduces his account by the amount wired to the other bank to cover the check. Upon receiving the paper checks by courier, a bank processor (7) processes the cancelled checks by feeding them into a scanner that (a) electronically verifies them against the electronic debit ledger and also (b) creates an electronic copy of the check. Then (c), the paper check is then fed through a shredder. The electronic copy is stored on a live computer for a period of 180 days, and then archived for long term storage (7). The scanned checks are verified against the electronic debit register to ensure the amounts withdrawn are the same as the amounts on the checks. This would be mostly an electronic scrubbing function, but anything questionable or illegible would be flagged to be reviewed by a live person (8).

In implementing this example 12 full time positions are eliminated per branch, which will greatly reduce the bank's payroll. This reduction could also reduce the number of required personnel support staff, such as Human Resources. But this implementation will also generate new jobs, as the legacy positions are eliminated.

The existing MIS department must be expanded, or a new one should be created to develop, and/or source, the new Information system. This functional department will be tasked with deploying and maintaining the system software and hardware. This will open up maybe 2 positions within each branch. Due to the expediency of the bank, more transactions can be made per day, opening up opportunities for the bank to grow, which will create more supporting jobs.

The process could be made even more efficient, requiring even less personnel.

Healthcare is another industry that can benefit greatly by the introduction of an efficient MIS system. This implementation is more of a quality issue, rather than a purely economic one, though. Managing health care systems can be a daunting task. A Legacy system, much like what we are used to today is riddled with inconsistencies and has a high chance for lost or missing data. It mainly consists of individual offices documenting care provided for each patient in individual folders. This is a largely clerical task of organizing, retrieving, and archiving physical data. Some large health care systems have gone an information system where the doctor's notes are transcribed into a patient database. This creates work and jobs for those to perform this on a regular basis.

An advantage to this type of system is that the healthcare can be managed much more effectively, and a patient's history can be readily available to the attending doctor. From a quality standpoint, this is desirable. From an economic standpoint, this will increase healthcare jobs in the maintenance, training, and deployment of such a system. This will not remove nurses and doctors from the hospitals and clinics, but it will make their jobs much more efficient. Not only will the patient care aspect be more efficient, but the entire process will be streamlined, allowing for more patients to receive better care.

With a better and more complete patient history, doctors will be able to provide a more accurate diagnosis. In hospitals