DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

ABSTRACT

            Organizations are made up of  group of people who have come together to pursue a common goal. Organizations, whether formal or informal make use of information to survive. The survival of any formal organisation rests entirely in the hands of the managers who at their various hierarchical levels do work with and through others to ensure such survivals. Management at all times works with information to put into use, the resources of their organisation. However, these resources of men, materials and money (3m’s) Obey the economic theory of scarcity. The concept of economic scarcity has made it imperative for management to prudently operate their organization for success.

                        It is this call to manage the organization for optimal performance at reduced costs while pursing accelerated profits that has given the management the impetus to apply the Science of Management information system (MIS) to ensure that they perform their jobs better to the advantage of the organization.

            From this broad perspective, MIS can be seen as the central factor in the performance of managerial functions of planning, organizing, directing and controlling with all, these interviewed and integrated in the decision-making process in the organization.

            Conceptually, MIS activities must be integrated and holistic in scope and nature and like the system theory, has to be evenly spread in the organization. it is therefore an indispensable, supporting system to management. MIS is not a new concept parse since it has existed long time, there were management requiring information to plan, organize, direct or control their activities.

            In those olden days, the existence of MIS, its nature and practice were essentially manual and informal because organizations and their activities were far from been complex.

            The manual application meant that most of the activities in a good MIS such as gathering of data, storage, processing and dissemination were wholly operated with only human effort.

However, the invention and introduction of computer in the running of business organization has opened up a new era in the nature and practice of management information system (MIS).

MIS is a modern form of management and information technology. MIS is a formal method of making available to management, the accurate and timely information to facilitate the decision-making process. It is a system of information creation. The system provides information about the past, present and projected future and also about relevant events inside and outside the organisation. The advent of computers as machines with the ability to process and condense large quantities of data and hold them until they are required for processing into relevant information, and with the introduction of computer-based MIS, it became imperative to approach the designing of management information systems as a formal process and a field of study.

MIS in formal organizations is of course formal in structure and functions in the sense that it follows, flows and permeates the organisation parts through the well-established organizational structure and design.     

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Abstract

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

1.0       Introduction

1.1       Background of the study

1.2       Objectives

1.3       Statement of problem

1.4       Significance of the study

1.5       Scope

1.6       Methodology

1.7       Constraints

1.8       Project report organization

CHAPTER TWO

2.0       Literature Review

CHAPTER THREE

3.0       System investigation and analysis

3.1       The existing system

3.2       Functions performed by various systems

3.3       System inputs and outputs

3.4       Problems of the existing system

3.5              User requirements

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0       System design

4.1       Objective of the design

4.2       Scope

4.3       System requirements

4.4       Development schedule

4.5       Cost

4.6       Database design

4.6.1    Processing and general program design

4.7       System security

4.8       Back-up and recovery

4.9              Database clean up

CHAPTER FIVE

5.0       Implementation

5.1       Software development

5.1.1    Development of environment 

5.1.2    Choice of implementation language

5.1.3    Implementing the database design

5.1.4    Database table structure

5.1.5        Program structure

CHAPTER SIX

6.0       Software testing and integration

6.1       Test plan

6.2       Test data

6.4       Expected test result

6.5       Performance evaluation

6.6       System changeover

6.7       System maintenance

6.8       Training

6.9              User’s manual

CHAPTER SEVEN

7.0       Summary and conclusion

7.1       Summary of achievements

7.2       Problems encountered

7.3       Recommendation for the system

7.4       Conclusion

REFERENCES 

CHAPTER ONE

1.0       INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND

            There has been continuous quest for man to improve his well being, thought, reactions to problem and challenges posed by his environment.

            Tools upon tools have been fashioned and designed by man to help him conquer these problems and challenges posed by his over crowded environment.

            The entry of computer system into the scene could not have been for any other reason except to improve efficiency and reduce time of provision of more reliable and accurate output.

            There is no doubt that the modern society and the accuracy, availability and management of this information should be of great importance to human beings.

            We all know that the aim of every organisation is to make profit from the services it renders. The complexity of the management of any business enterprise has a direct relationship to the size and range of operations of the organisations.

            Universities are known to have many levels of management. This project therefore focuses on the design and development of an management information system for university case study of Ebonyi State University (EBSU).

1.2       OBJECTIVES

            This research work aims at developing and effective software for management information system for university case study of Ebonyi State University (EBSU)

            Specially, the objectives are:

-           Enhanced front-end data capture;

-           To quicken the search for a particular staff or student;

-           To improve file keeping and handling facility;

-           To ensure the production of reliable timely and accurate management information,

-           To  improve the handling of adhol queries;

-           To maintain management information system for forecasting and decision-making;

-           To help put in place effective management information system and improved utilization of resources.

1.2       STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

It has been observed that manual filling system in university sector has many problem associated with it which includes:

(1)        The manual filing system is inefficient

(2)        A lot of time is is waster in processing activities.

(3)        Loss of vital data is rampant

(4)        Reports produced are error-prone and inaccurate

(5)        Immediate access to management information is often difficult.

            As a result of the above outline problems associated with manual filing system manual filing system in university domain, this project work aims at not only providing advice to these problems but also solving them hence the them “Design and development..”

1.4       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

            Man has moved from primitive stone ages in industrial age and of recent to information technology age. Computerized management information system is the fundamental and the bedrock for information technology (IT). Because of the importance of the information technology (IT) age, university is concerting from the traditional manual-based processes to computer-based methods.

            The significance of this research work is to demonstrate how university’s need could be met efficiently and effectively through the application of tools and methods made available by new advances in science and technology.

1.5       SCOPE

            The project is concerned with the design of an management information system that will efficiently handle the various activities in any university in Nigeria. It covers management staff records. Academic staff records, non- academic staff records of the university and also the student records.

1.6       METHODOLOGY

            The following stages of systems life cycle development methodology adopted by Kalicharam (1988) was used.

System Investigation

            This is the fact-finding stage. Observation and interviews was conducted and activities relating to the current system observed. All available related documents was gathered and studied.

Analysis

            The analysis of the facts gathered about the existing system uncovers major problem areas that was eliminated in the new system see 1.3 above.

System Design

            Under the design, inputs, outputs and processing specification are drawn up in details.

Implementation

            Implementation involves the actual programming and testing of the new system. Implementation ends when there is user acceptance of what the system delivers.

            Kalicharam (1988) observed that the above list is not meant to imply that these activities are strictly in order, one after the other. According to him there is usually some overlap among the various phases.