INTRODUCTION

TO SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

Prepared by: Engr. Joy N. Sadol

College of Engineering and Technology

References:
SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN by Gerald A. Silver and Myrna L. Silver
SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN 8th ed. by Kenneth E. Kendall and Julie E. Kendall
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, the students should be able to:
1.Describe key system concepts
2.Contrast business and information systems
3.Explain, with examples, the concepts of system environment, boundaries and limits.
4.Contrast open systems and closed systems.
5.Recall the basic types of computer-based systems that a systems analyst needs to
address.

6.Understand how users working in context with new technologies change the
dynamics of a system.

7.List the advantages of systems analysis

8.Summarize the limitations of systems analysis.

Kendall & Kendall 2005 Pearson Prentice Hall 1-2

 Introduction
• Are we in Atomic Age? Computer Age? or
Information Age?

• Information and paperwork are the most abundant

products generated

• Reasons for overwhelming information and

paperwork:
1. people - due to increase in population
2. government - due to increased regulations and
control
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What is a System??
• The term system is derived from the Greek word
‘Systema‘ which means an organized relationship
among functioning units or components.

• A system is an orderly grouping of inter- dependent

components linked together according to a plan to
achieve a specific objective.

• A system is a regularly interacting or interdependent

group of elements forming a unified whole.

• A system is a collection of related parts treated as a

unit where its components interact.
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Implications
The study of system has some basic implications:

1.A system must be designed to achieve a

predetermined objective.

2.Interrelationship and interdependence must exist

among the components.

3.The objectives of the organization as a whole

have a higher priority than the objectives of its
subsystems – “the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts”.
Examples of Systems
• water supply/distribution system
- pipelines, storage facilities, pumps, pipes, and other
accessories

• ecological system
- plants, animals, microbes, soil, etc.

• the human body

- subsystems: digestive, nervous, skeletal, circulatory,
reproductive, etc.

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Characteristics of a System

1.Organization
2.Interaction
3.Interdependence
4.Integration
5.Central Objective
Characteristics of a System
1. Organization
- It implies structure and order. It is
the arrangement of components that helps to
achieve objectives.

2. Interaction
- It refers to the manner in which
each component functions with other
components of the system.
Characteristics of a System…

3. Interdependence
- It means that parts of the organization or
computer system depend on one another. They are
coordinated and linked together according to a plan.
One subsystem depends on the output of another
subsystem for proper functioning.

4. Integration
- It refers to the holism of systems. It
is concerned with how a system is tied together.
Characteristics of a System…

5. Central Objective
- A system should have a central
objective. Objectives may be real or stated. Although
a stated objective may be the real objective, it is not
uncommon for an organization to state one objective
and operate to achieve another. The important point is
that users must know the central objective of a
computer application early in the analysis for a
successful design and conversion.
The Major Attribute of a System
• A system possesses qualities and attributes
not found in the individual elements.

• “The whole is producing results that is

greater than the sum of the parts.”

Example: A collection of mechanical and electrical

items – bearings, gears, wires, nuts, bolts, stamped
parts, etc. – can be assembled into an automobile.

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 System Fundamentals

• A system is usually composed of many parts

or elements called subsystems.

• A subsystem performs a specified task that

is compatible with the goals of the larger
system of which it is a part.

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Elements of a System

1.Outputs and Inputs ENVIRONMENT

2.Processor
3.Control input
system
output

4.Feedback
5.Environment boundary

6.Boundaries and Interface

Elements of a System

OUTPUTS and INPUTS

The major objective of the system is to produce an
output that has value to its user/s.

•Inputs - are the elements that enter the system

for processing.

•Outputs - are the result or product of processing.

•A system feeds on inputs to produce outputs in the

much same way that a business brings a human,
financial, and material resources to produce goods and
services.
Elements of a System

PROCESSOR(s)
The processor is the element of a system that
involves the actual transformation of input into output.
It is the operational component of a system. The
processor may modify the input totally or partially,
depending on a specification of the output. This means
that as the output specifications change, so does the
processing.

Processing is the manipulation of an input to produce

an output.
For example: calculating, sorting, classifying, etc.
Elements of a System

CONTROL
The control element guides the system, It is
the decision-making subsystem that controls
the pattern of activities governing input,
processing and output.
Elements of a System

FEEDBACK
Control in a dynamic system  is achieved by
feedback.

Feedback measures output against a standard in

some form of cybernetic procedure that includes
communication and control. The output information
is fed back to the input and/or to management for
deliberation. After the output is compared against
performance standards, changes can result in the
input or processing and consequently, the output.
Feedback may be positive or negative, routine or
informational.
Elements of a System

ENVIRONMENT
 The environment is the “suprasystem”
within which an organization operates. It
determines how a system should work. A
system cannot exist in isolation. The system
is covered by the environment with a
boundary in between the two.

• The environment is the people, facilities,

rules, policies, and regulations that surround
a system
Elements of a System

BOUNDARIES and INTERFACE

A boundary is the perimeter, or line of
demarcation, between a system and the
environment. It distinguishes between the system
and the outside world with which it interacts.

A system should be defined by its boundaries -

the limit that identify its components, process, and
interrelationships when it interfaces with another
system. Each system has boundaries that
determine its sphere of influence and control.
Elements of a System

BOUNDARIES and INTERFACE

The interconnections and the interactions
between the sub-systems is known as the
interfaces. They may be inputs and
outputs of the systems.
Types of Systems
• Physical  Permanent
• Abstract  Temporary
• Deterministic  Adaptive
• Probabilistic  Non-adaptive
• Social  Open
• Human Machine  Closed
• Machine
• Natural
• Manufactured
 Types of Systems
• Physical System – These are tangible entities that
may be static or dynamic in operation.
For example: parts of a computer center are the desks,
chairs etc. that facilitate operation of the computer.
They are static and a programmed computer is
dynamic.

• Abstract System – These are conceptual or non

physical entities.
For example: the abstract conceptualization of physical
situations. A model is a representation of a real or
planned system. A model is used to visualize
relationships.
 Types of System…

• Deterministic System – It operates in a predictable

manner and the interaction between parts is known
with certainty.
For example: Two molecules of hydrogen and one
molecule of oxygen make water.

• Probabilistic System – It shows probable behavior.

The exact output is not known.
For example: weather forecasting, mail delivery.

• Social System- It is made up of people.

For example: social clubs, societies
Types of System…

• Human Machine System – When both human and

machines are involved to perform a particular task to
achieve a target.
For example: design-layout department of a publishing
company

• Machine System – Where human interference is

neglected. All the tasks are performed by the
machine.
For example: photocopying of 1000 copies of a page.
Types of System…

• Natural System
The system which is natural.
For example: Solar system, Seasonal System.

• Manufactured System
System made by man is called manufactured
system.
For example: Rockets, Dams, and Trains.
Types of System…

• Permanent System
A system that persists for a long time.
For example: policies of a business.

• Temporary System
Made for specified time and after that they are
dissolved.
For example: setting up a DJ system.
Types of System…

• Adaptive System
That which responds to change in the environment
in such a way as to improve their performance and
to survive.
For example: Human beings, animals.

• Non-Adaptive System
The system which does not respond to the
environment.
For example: machines
 Types of System…

• Open System – It has many interfaces with its environment. It

interacts across its boundaries, it receives inputs from and delivers
outputs to the outside world.
An Open System openly communicates with its surrounding
environment and exchanges data and information. It must adapt to
the changing demands of the user.

For example: Human Resource Department

• Closed System – It is isolated from the environmental

influences. It has no interaction with any elements outside the
system itself. A completely closed system is rare.

For example: Research & Development Department

 Business Systems

A business system is a collection of

policies, procedures, methods, people,
machines, and other elements that
interact and enable the organization to
reach its goals.

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 Other Elements of a Business
System
Business systems often include:
•Marketing
•Personnel
•Production
•Finance
•Distribution

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Tasks of a Business System

An important task of a business system is

the managing and coordinating function.

•Business systems record deposits and

withdrawals, transfer funds, collect and
manage data about customers, or guide
the production or marketing aspects of an
organization.

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Goals of a Business System
• A goal for some organizations is to maximize profit and
return on investment to shareholders.

• For others, such as mutual benefit associations, the

goal is to provide services or facilities to members,
rather than profit to shareholders.

• To others, such as nonprofit organizations, the goal is

to serve the public by providing healthcare, housing or
food programs to those in need.

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 The Data Processing Cycle

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 Data vs. Information
• Data is the raw material that is processed and
refined to generate information.

• Information is the product that results from

processing or manipulating raw data.

• Information is ultimately used to make

decisions.

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Growth/Evolution of the
Information Industry
An industry has evolved to process the vast amount of
data and information handled by government, industry,
and business. The evolution of the information
industry has been described as moving through three
phases: (Arthur D. Little, Time, Nov. 23, 1981)

1.The Pre-industrial Age

2.The Industrial Age
3.The Information Age

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 Evolution of the Information Industry:

The Pre-Industrial Age

In the pre-industrial age, information was

processed using typewriters, adding
machines, and handwritten materials. Thus,
information handling was slow, inefficient,
and often inaccurate.

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 Evolution of the Information Industry:

The Industrial Age

With the advent of computers, word processing,
and copy machines, information processing
moved into the industrial age.

While mechanized, records were still sent

through the mails, handed from one person
to another, and physically filed in cabinets.

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 Evolution of the Information Industry:

The Information Age

Modern office automation, the personal
computer, and breakthroughs in data
communications created the information
age.

In this era, information is routed from terminal

to terminal and office to office over
communication lines, and can be sorted,
stored, and retrieved at many different
locations.
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 The Changing Labor Force
The growth in the volume of data that systems
process is reflected in the makeup and size of
the labor force

• Early 1950’s - more people were employed in

manufacturing and traditionally blue-collar
jobs than in white-collar jobs in finance,
banking, communications and services.

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• 1956 – In the U.S., the number of white-collar
workers exceeded the number of blue-collar
workers for the first time.

• This trend has continued, with many more

people today included in white-collar, clerical,
knowledge industry-related employment.

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 Cont.
• In 1970’s, drastic increase are observed in the
banking, insurance, real estate and finance
industries, all heavily information-oriented.

• Economy is shifting away from manufacturing to a

technical professional-service-oriented workforce

• Workers concentrate on processing data rather than

raw materials such as metal, plastic, wood, or
paper.
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 Information Processing
• Information is an organizational resource, which
must be managed as carefully as other
resources.

• Costs are associated with information

processing.

• Information processing must be managed to

take full advantage of its potential.

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Information Processing
Information Processing is the acquisition,
recording, organization, retrieval, display,
and dissemination of information. In recent
years, the term has often been applied to
computer-based operations specifically.
Information Processing requires:
• Planning
• People
• Machines
• Money
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 Information Systems
• An information system (IS) is a system
composed of people and computers that processes or
interprets information. Computers, in this sense,
include the software and hardware systems that
support data-intensive applications.

• Information Systems are collections of procedures,

programs, equipment, and methods that process data
and make it available to management for decision
making.

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 Information Systems
• Information Systems is a scientific subarea with the
wider area of Computing and deals with the application
of computer systems in organizations for them to support
the business processes and business applications of the
organizations.
• The term, however, is also sometimes used in more
restricted sense to refer to only the software used to run
a computerized database or to refer to only a computer
system.
• Information processing and handling is one of the most
important components of many businesses.

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 Types of Information Systems
Information systems are developed for
different purposes, depending on the need of
the business.
• Transaction processing systems (TPS).
• Office automation systems (OAS).
• Knowledge work systems (KWS).
• Management information systems (MIS).
• Decision support systems (DSS).
• Expert systems (ES) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• Group decision support systems (GDSS) and Computer-
Supported Collaborative Work Systems.
• Executive support systems (ESS).

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 Types of IS:

Transaction Processing System

• Transaction Processing Systems (TPS) are
computerized information systems that were
developed to process large amounts of data for
routine business transactions such as payroll and
inventory.

• A TPS eliminates the tedium of necessary operational

transactions and reduces the time once required to
perform them manually, although people must still
input data to computerized systems.

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• Transaction Processing Systems (TPS) are
boundary-spanning systems that permit the
organization to interact with external environments, it
generates up-to-the-minute information about what is
happening in their company.

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Types of IS:

Office Automation Systems

and Knowledge Work Systems
At the knowledge level of the organizations are two
classes of systems:
1.Office Automation Systems (OAS) support data
workers, who do not usually create new knowledge but
rather analyze information to transform data or
manipulate it in some way before sharing it with, or
disseminating it throughout the organization and
beyond.

It includes word processing, spreadsheets, desktop

publishing, escheduling, and communications through
email, voicemail, and teleconferencing.
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 2. Knowledge Work Systems (KWS) support
professional workers such as scientists, engineers
and doctors by aiding them in their efforts to
create new knowledge and by allowing them to
contribute it to their organization or to society at
large.

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Types of IS:

Management Information
Systems
• Management information systems (MIS) do not
replace transaction processing systems, rather, all MIS
include transaction processing.

• MIS are computerized information systems that work

because of the purposeful interaction between people
and computers including decision analysis and decision
making.

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Types of IS:

Decision Support Systems

• A higher-level class of computerized information
systems is decision support systems (DSS).

• DSS are similar to the traditional management

information systems because they both depend on a
database as a source of data.

• Decision support systems are more closely tailored

to the person or group using them than is a traditional
management information systems.

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Types of IS:
Artificial Intelligence and Expert
Systems
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be considered as the
overarching field for expert systems.
• The general thrust of AI has been to develop machines
that behave intelligently. Two avenues of AI research are
(1) understanding natural language and (2) analyzing the
ability to reason through a problem to its logical
conclusion.
• Expert Systems are a very special class of information
system that has been made practicable for use by
business as a result of widespread availability of hardware
and software such as personal computers and expert
system shells.
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Types of IS:
Group Decision Support Systems and
Computer-Supported Collaborative Work
Systems
• Group decision support systems (GDSS), which
are used in special rooms equipped in a number of
different configuration, permit group members to
interact with electronic support, often in a the form
of a specialized software– and a special group
facilitator.
• Group decision support systems are intended to
bring a group together to solve a problem with the
help of various supports such as polling,
questionnaires, brainstorming, and scenario creation.

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• Sometimes, GDSS are discussed under the more
general term computer-supported collaborative
work systems (CSCWS), which might include
software support called groupware for team
collaboration via networked computers.

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Types of IS:

Executive Support Systems

• Executive Support Systems (ESS) help executives
organize their interactions with the external environment
by providing graphics and communications technologies
in accessible places such as boardrooms or personal
corporate offices.
• Although ESS rely on the information generated by TPS
and MIS, executive support systems help their users
address unstructured decision problems, which are not
application-specific, by creating an environment that
helps them think about strategic problems in an informed
way.

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Integrating New Technologies
New technologies that are being integrated with
traditional systems to ensure a useful
context:

• Ecommerce applications and web systems

• Enterprise systems
• Systems for wireless and mobile devices
• Open source software.

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Ecommerce Applications and
Web Systems
Benefits of mounting the application on the Web:

•Increasing awareness of the availability of a

service, product, industry, person, or group.
•24-hour access for users.
•Improving the usability of the interface design.
•Creating a global system.

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 Enterprise Systems
• Many organizations envision potential benefits from
the integration of many information systems existing
on different management levels and within different
functions.

• Enterprise Systems, also called enterprise

resource planning (ERP) systems are systems
that are designed to perform this integration.

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Systems for Wireless and
Mobile Devices
Analysts may be asked to design the ff:

•Integration of voice, video, text messaging, and email

into organization’s intranets or industry extranets.

•Wireless ecommerce or mcommerce (mobile

commerce).

•WLANs, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

•Intelligent agents like ESTA (EastWest System

Technical Assistant)
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Open Source Software
• The term open source refers to something people
can modify and share because its design is publicly
accessible.

• Open source software is software with source code

that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance.

• It is the opposite of "proprietary" or "closed

source" software which has source code that only the
person, team, or organization who created it—and
maintains exclusive control over it—can modify.
Kendall & Kendall 2005 Pearson Prentice Hall 1-62
 The Study of Systems Analysis

• System Analysis is the investigation of

business or information systems. It is the
scientific study of the systems process,
including investigation of the inputs and
outputs, in order to find better, more
economical, and more efficient means of
processing.

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 Nature of Analysis and Design
Systems analysis and design is a systematic
approach to:

• Identifying problems, opportunities, and

objectives.

• Analyzing the information flows in organizations.

• Designing computerized information systems to

solve a problem.

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Advantages of Systems Analysis
The application of Systems Analysis techniques to
information processing has many benefits.
These include:
1.Greater Efficiency
2.Maximum Profits
3.Resources used to the best advantage
4.Reduction of human effort
5.Faster turnaround
6.Reducing or Eliminating Errors in data and information
7.Consistent operations and procedures
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Advantages of Systems Analysis
1. Greater efficiency
Systems analysis methods help a firm to
develop and maintain an organizational
structure and operating procedures for
maximum efficiency.

2. Maximum profits
A business firm that operates efficiently
and systematically is likely to generate greater
profits.
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Advantages of Systems Analysis…

3. Resources used to the best advantage

Systems analysis aids a firm in
achieving high quality output with the least
investment of time, material and other
resources.

Kendall & Kendall 2005 Pearson Prentice Hall 1-67

Advantages of Systems Analysis…

4. Reduction of human effort

Systems analysis encourages the best
utilization and allocation of human effort and
labor. Systems analysts attempt to uncover
duplication, redundancy, and wasted effort
and to automate procedure whenever
practical.

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 Advantages of Systems Analysis…

5. Faster turnaround
Efficiently organized procedures and
operation s make it possible to reach goals
faster. This is true whether the output of
the firm is the production of goods or
services, or the movement of information,
data, money, or the like.

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 Advantages of Systems Analysis…

6. Reducing or Eliminating Errors in data

and information
An important goal of the systems
analyst is to increase the accuracy of the
data generated and processed by a firm

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Advantages of Systems Analysis…

7. Consistent operations and procedures

Clearly written policy statements,
diagrams, flowcharts, and such make it more
likely that a firm’s procedures and practices
will be followed and maintained in a
consistent manner. They also serve as guides
for modifications or alterations.

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 Limitations of Systems Analysis
1. Some business problems are beyond the scope of
systems analysis techniques.
The most skillfully designed data flow system cannot help an
organization that is falling because of serious financial
problems or because it is marketing a product people no
longer want.

2. Problems created by pressures from outside the

enterprise, such as from stockholders or the
public, are also often beyond the reach of the
systems analyst.
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Limitations of Systems Analysis…

3. Systems analysis efforts cost time and money.

Finding a long-term, permanent solution to a problem
can be an expensive investment, compared to a
short-term, temporary answer.

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Limitations of Systems Analysis…

4. The human element can cause complications.

A system analyst must take this into consideration. Much of
the analyst’s activities involve making changes in
routines, systems, organizational structures, working
patterns and conditions, and in other areas. People tend
to oppose change. They resist adjusting to unfamiliar
situations, even those that are in their best interests in
the long run. The systems analyst has the responsibility
of preparing the employees, customers, management,
vendors, and others to accept the modifications and
alterations introduced by a new system.
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Limitations of Systems Analysis…

5. Effort is required to sell a system.

No matter how promising a systems analysis project may

seem, it cannot sell itself. The people involved must
be encouraged to cooperate in the development and
implementation of the venture to ensure its success.

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 Thank you for your attentiveness.

• Please visit the Moodle for your activity for today –

ACTIVITY #01.

• Also, be ready to group yourselves for your final

requirement in this course.

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