Computer system

A computer system. It can be defined as an information system that bases the fundamental part of its processing, in the use of computing , like any system , it is a set of interrelated functions, hardware , software and Human Resources . A normal computer system employs a system that uses devices that are used to program and store programs and data.

If, in addition to information , it is capable of storing and disseminating the knowledge generated on a certain subject, both within and in the entity’s environment, then it is in the presence of an information and knowledge management system . As an end user, you use this information in two fundamental activities: decision-making and control.

Summary

[ hide ]

• 1 Beginnings of a computer system
• 2 Components of a computer system
• 3 Types of computer systems
• 4 Stages in the IT development of entities
• 5 Sources
• 6 External link

Beginnings of a computer system

The activity of a system begins when in the entity where it is used, a certain economic event (purchase, sale, payment, collection), administrative (order or directive, control activity), productive or of another nature is carried out, which generates data Primary data that must be captured, in a form or directly on a computer, can be acquired data, if they come from the environment, be it the Internet or another entity, in both cases human participation is essential, so it must be organized through rational and structural procedures in order to avoid mistakes.

These primary data, which can already be called primary information because they have been the object of operations that have physically modified them, are transmitted through different channels for inclusion in the entity’s information system, where they are modified, stored in databases, associated with other data and used in calculations of various kinds. These activities are carried out by the computer part of the system.

After these activities, the information is ready to be consulted, it can be defined as result or output information and from this consultation, the human being will make decisions or control a certain activity of the entity.

Components of a computer system

Components of the computer system

• People at the two ends of the chain of physical information processing: in the realization of the facts that generate the primary data and its capture and acquisition and in the consultation and use of them. Of course, they also intervene in certain system operation actions.
• Information processing equipment, mainly computers.
• Transmission support equipment ( HUB, gateways ), support and security equipment ( back-ups , air conditioners , dehumidifiers, among others)
• Computer programs, operating systems, communication service programs, and above all, application programs)
• Technical information to support the system: technical manuals on the work of computers and support equipment, technical manuals on operating systems and general programs.
• Usermanuals to guide user-operators about their work with the information system. Include the definition of manual procedures that users operators, the description of forms to capture the primary information, the description of output reports and description of interactive actions with the computer system must perform: capturing the information , operation of the same, actions against errors and abnormal situations, security and protection of information resources and consultation of information on results.
• Various types of information, supported on paperforms , CDs , DVDs , printer paper reports , online databases stored on hard drives .

Types of computer systems

This classification of computer systems is limited to economic, financial and accounting management applications, with a group of systems, not necessarily exclusive, so it may be possible that more than one specific system can be classified in more than one group.

Basic information processing systems . They are those in which computers are limited to carrying out physical information processing operations. The people who make up the system assume all the tasks of generating primary information and analyzing results information.

• Transaction Processing Systems (TPS). These are dedicated to the physical process of data related to certain routine and isolated transactions in the usual work of socio-economic entities, such as inventory control, control of fixed assets or the payroll of wages or salaries, little exploit the possibilities of machines and current software.
• Office automation systems (OAS). It includes the use of word processors, electronic data sheets, exhibition preparers, scheduling, communication through e-mails, videoconferences, involving the search and acquisition of operations and in many cases, the preparation of decisions for executives and managers. They can solve typical office tasks, such as scheduling and controlling activities through individual and collective electronic agendas, recording and controlling agreements and guidelines, writing and forming texts in reports, brochures, creating, updating and consulting related databases. with customers and vendors.
• Management information systems (MIS). These systems have covered the TPS, integrating them through database systems and data warehouses, in such a way that the system can reflect the complex reality of a socioeconomic entity, with all its subsystems and informational relationships. They are oriented, above all, to provide information for decision-making and control, so it can be ensured that the role of the computer in these systems is relatively passive.

Today’s MIS covers a large number of functions and tasks, has huge and complex database systems. They achieve with a simple input of primary information that all the operations that this input generates are triggered, without the user-operators having to intervene in anything other than the initial input. Examples of this are the software “Monica”, the “Visual conta” and Versat Sarasola and Atenas for accounting.

Decision support systems. They rely on the MIS, which create and update the databases, which the former use. DSS are intended for decision making, they are made to support individual work or for group decisions, they support a lot in the so-called operations research or quantitative methods of decision making, mathematical techniques to support the work of the being human in the so-called well-structured, weakly structured and unstructured decisions, which due to their complexity can have errors when analyzed by the human being with traditional methods (intuition, experience). Examples of these decisions are the use of critical path techniques to direct construction projects. The use of linear programming to direct optimal feeding in nutrients, but at the lowest possible cost of earning. A very important type of DSS is enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

• Individual decision support system
• Group decision support system

The DSS as already explained can be for individual or group work. There are times when several more or less distant people need to use and interact with the same information through the computer system (group), this type of system is virtually aimed at a group of people, who must solve a complex problem, which It will include voting, filling in questionnaires, creating scenarios and simulations, which will later be known to all.

And another like the Scheduling system in which individual work is typical (in a relative sense: it can be information that is used by a group of people but who receive it and can use it in a terminal of a computer network)

Systems based on artificial intelligence . Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science that seeks to emulate the intellectual capabilities of the human being, through the use of specialized software and computers. It encompasses many fields, including robotics, general problem solving, visual, auditory, and digital pattern identification and recognition, motion simulation, natural language analysis and synthesis, and empowerment of human knowledge. They represent a step forward in relation to the previous MIS and DDS, they can assume more “human” activities, more active in the management processes, since they have incorporated many elements that make them act similarly as a human would.

• Expert or rule-based systems of knowledge. They are based on having the knowledge of one or more human experts, usually in the form of production rules, expressed in the form of IF (condition), THEN (action), ELSE (alternative action), SI (condition), then execute a (action) and otherwise execute the (alternative action), for the solution of a specific problem.

Expert systems, as they are commonly known, have a special database where the knowledge of human experts is stored. This is called the knowledge base, its preparation and filling is supported by a technology called knowledge engineering, halfway between computer science and technology. In addition, these systems have specialized programs in artificial intelligence known as inference engines, through which they review the knowledge bases and execute “intelligent” operations to solve the problems that arise.

These systems are criticized for: the knowledge bases are difficult to complete. As the database is filled with knowledge, far from being faster, it slows down.

• Case-based reasoning systems (RBC). They are based on analogy as a form of representation of knowledge, they are based on the apparent human way of reasoning, they use past experiences to face new problems, consequently they apply techniques of intuition and allow learning. Its theoretical basis is supported by the field of approximate reasoning. His philosophy involves learning from past successes and mistakes. They can be used successfully in interpretation, justification, classification, projection and forecasting problems. Example: JULIA: Design of food groups.

Operation: they start from the concept of case: this is a portion of knowledge that represents a specific experience and the context in which it happened, is stored in a library of cases (files) in which relevant or memorable experiences are kept, for the purposes to use it in the solution of future cases.

Disadvantage: in computing as in other domains of human activity there are no perfect solutions and it can generate not good solutions. However, they are practical solutions that include a reasoning methodology with high expectations for the future.

• Artificial neural network (ANN) systems. It seeks to simulate the way natural neurons in the human brain supposedly work. Each system is made up of many artificial neurons, which when associated with each other, through certain architectures, can perform complex work with astonishing quality. Their greatest virtue is that they manage to work properly even if the input information they receive has a certain degree of errors or is to some extent incomplete. But the association of these artificial neurons makes simple jobs turn into very complex activities that are successfully performed. Example: design of an RNA to carry out evaluations of the internal control system in certain entities.
• Systems based on genetic algorithms (GA). Set of methods that rely, as their name indicates, on the emulation of the genetic development of animals and plants, these are among themselves a machine learning technique, they aspire to allow computers to “learn” by themselves, for some specialists they are just a family of adaptive search for solutions.

They begin with a collection of randomly generated data or patterns and subsequently evolve towards an optimal or at least satisfactory solution, by adapting the initial data or patterns, using equivalent operations.

The solution they provide is not necessarily optimal, but it may be very close to that criterion. These algorithms are used more and more in economic, financial, accounting and auditing applications.

Systems based on WEB techniques . The rise in the world of one of the Internet services, the World Wide Web (WWW) has led to the emergence of a new form of systems from WEB technology, and in the concept of hypertext and hypermedia.

• Intranets
• Externally oriented WEB sites

The Intranets arises from the use of the WEB in the internal management of the entity . An intranets is a particular network, based on local area communication networks or wide area networks, that uses standard technology and services or products that can be found or have been developed for the Internet. An Intranet may or may not have an Internet connectionAnd if you have it, you can filter unwanted access with so-called firewalls. The Intranets should be intertwined with business systems, such as MIS, DDS and ERP, in these cases the user-operators of its resources will be the same officials and specialists who use the business management systems mentioned. Thus the flow of nformation is carried significantly simplify through the network and reducing to the minimum the number of documents supported on the paper to move within the entity.

Systems based on the WEB can also be used externally, that is, to communicate information to the environment of the entity ( clients , suppliers , higher levels, government agencies, the general public and other political or administrative control entities). In these cases, the information that will appear on the website will be in accordance with the mission and objectives of the entity.

Example: a site of a university will give information on the instruction, the courses they teach, the faculties, schools and research centers that compose it, on the faculty that comprise it. In these cases, the receiver-object of the WEB site is someone located outside the borders of the socioeconomic system , that is, the entity .

Knowledge management systems . It is known that knowledge is associated with information, but it is much more, knowledge is, from the perspective of the science of management, the ability to solve problems, knowing what to do, how to do it, where to do it, and why do what.

This knowledge gives a competitive advantage to the entities that possess it, therefore it must be protected, but it must also be preserved and disseminated among the members of an entity, so that the expertise of some becomes the patrimony of others. This is knowledge management.

The systems that are in charge of this management, that is, detection, acquisition, conservation and dissemination of knowledge are the knowledge management systems. Two types of systems used by socio-economic entities are:

• MarketingInformation Systems (SIM)
• Relationship management systems (e-CRM).

The marketing information systems are intended to manage all the information with the market, the management of potential and real clients, market studies, the analysis of the impact of promotion policies, the monitoring and analysis of competitors, the analysis of prices, study of consumption trends, macroeconomic studies of demographic trends, etc. They are closely linked to the Internet.

Relationship management systems are systems closely associated with SIMs and commercial management, as they are used to foster an adequate relationship with the entity’s clients. They are used practically throughout the entire customer relationship cycle. They can be used to define: sales provisions, records of customer management visits, contacts made at fairs and congresses, previous purchase volumes, previous or satisfied purchase intentions, payment behavior, banks with which it works, business opportunities, direct marketing actions you have received.

CIM integrated manufacturing systems should not fail to be mentioned, which represent a higher level of integration of computer systems, require high computer technology, but also a culture prone to these evolved solutions and a mature organization prepared to assimilate those systems.

Practically all the functions of an industrial, commercial, service, agricultural, etc. company can be covered by specialized computer applications, but between them there may be an exchange of information that justifies and makes the concept of the system and that of the organization as a system.

Stages in the IT development of entities

The use of New Information and Communication Technologies shows that it is not only a technical and economic problem, but that introducing information technology and communications and advancing their development is, above all, a problem that depends on three highly related variables:

• The need to computerize to make the entity fulfill its mission and achieve the vision of itself that it arises. Without the need for development there will be no result.
• The degree of maturity reached in its management and the technical level of its management team and its human capital in general. If that human capital does not manage to assimilate the necessary knowledge, it will never go beyond the elementary use of computer resources.
• The development of a cultureprone to change and the introduction of this technology. Without the willingness to evolve, to modify work habits and routines, to achieve better ways and methods of doing, there will be no assimilation of complex technology.

Taking into account the declared variables, the stages through which the IT development of the entities passes are the following:

1. Elementary introduction of computer technologies. Isolated TPS applications to payroll, inventory, fixed asset control, and financial accounting.
2. Deepening of economic, financial and accounting management with the support of information technology. Transit from TPS to MIS.
3. Understanding of the MIS and its possibilities. Relative maturity of human capital in management: introduction of DSS and ERP. Intranet.
4. Parallel to stage 3, stage 4 occurs, in which marketing management is computerized: SIM.
5. Once the internal management has been solved, the external one is assumed: WEB sites and assimilation of electronic commerce.
6. Higher stage of maturity of human capital: use of artificial intelligence systems.
7. Integration of IT solutions. CIM approach in industrial companies.

On the basis of these three variants, the development of each stage occurs in what has come to be known as the Life Cycle of information and knowledge systems .