IT AND THE DESIGN OF WORK

Information system (IS) is designed to produce information that can be used to support the activities of managers and other workers. IS is used to aid business processess, functional areas and data processing where data is converted into information for decision making. Information system is formed under five resources, they are people, hardware, software, communication and data. People in information system refers to the IT (Information technology) and IS professionals.

To understand how an IS works, it is important to know the steps involved in the data process. The first step in the data process is to record the data. Data such as expenses, sales, profit, amount of merchandise purchased and dealers’ information are entered with the input devices into the computer system for future use in preparing reports or other documents. Such data is entered on a daily basis in a batch processing system, if not immediately. This is done as such data is needed not only on a daily basis but on a periodic basis for financial and legal purposes. Data is converted into information with the IS. Personal computers, workstations, scanners and electronic communication tools are example of input devices that are associated with the IS.

Data processing is attained through personal computers or servers that process the data into information. Though these business applications are computerized, the core processes used by these IS are still based on customary classification, rearranging and the ‘double-entry’ system introduced in the past. With the UBS software, data can be stored in various files and categories. This storing is done by people within a specific department. For example, a staff in the accounting department will record all the accounting data while the sales department will store information regarding customers and suppliers into the information system. Among the categories that the data can be classified into are accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, purchases and other information that need to be stored.