Fang Hu
Management Information System
Week 1 – Chapter 1
1. What does the word “processing” in data processing mean?
“Processing” in date processing mean anything action that produces date into information, such as analyze date, divide date into category, find the total, average, means, ratios and trends.

2. Give three examples in which raw data also serves as useful information.
In the retail industry, there have lots of raw date could be very useful, such as customer’s name, address, education level, or employment experience. All those raw date in retail also can be information, because we can just use these information without processing.

3. Give three business examples (not mentioned in the text) of data that must be processed to provide useful information.
If a businessman want to open a clothing store in China, then he need to process the date into useful information such as what is the trend color in China, what is the trend style in China, and what is the trend fabric materials in China.

4. Give three examples of subsystems not operating in the context of IT. Why are these considered subsystems and not systems?
A system usually includes many subsystems. Subsystems contribute the sub-goal to meet the main goal of a system. For example, in a restaurant have two waiters, one chef, one cashier and one manager. The two waiters are responsible of helping customers, chef is responsible of cooking the food, cashier is responsible for check out, and the manager is in charge of organizing the team at store. All these roles are considered subsystems of a large system which is the restaurant business.

5. How do TPSs and DSSs differ?
TPSs do not analyze date nor create any information. A TPS merely records transactions and channels them into files and database. However, A DSS can help make decisions, it provides useful information gleaned and process from war date. DSS is a thing make raw date process into information.

6. What is a problem? Give an example of a business problem and discuss how a computer based information system could solve it.
A problem is “any undesirable situation”. Suppose after inventory a store’s inventory shows it has items available which it does not physically have on hand, which is a problem. And manager needs to figure out why this is happening, and he need to adjust it to make it balance. The manager can use retail management system to see each store book inventory and physical inventory, and to make transfer in order to balance the book inventory and physical inventory.

7. What is synergy? How is synergy accomplished when a person uses a computer? Explain the connection between synergy and increased productivity.
Synergy is from Greek means “to work together” is the attainment of output, when two factors work together, that is greater, or better than the sum of their products when they were separately. Human can think, then computer can calculate and perform programmed logical operations extremely rapidly; human have common sense, computer can store and retrieve date and information extremely rapidly; human can make decision, computer can performs complex logical and arithmetical functions accurately; human can instruct the computer what to do, computer execute long, tedious operations. Human can learn new methods and techniques, computer can performs routine tasks less expensively than humans; human can accumulate expertise, and compute are adaptable.

8. “An information system consists of hardware and software.” Why is this statement inadequate?
An information system has become synonymous with a computer based information system that computer collect, store, and process date into information according to instruction people provide via computer programs.

9. In which situations does one need to make a decision? Give three examples not mentioned in the chapter.
What id we purchase raw material overseas?
What if we merge our warehouses?
What if we double our