Explain the importance of System Analysis and Design with its major components.

(BICT 4th, sem,SAD)

System Analysis Important

System analysis is important in that it provides an avenue for solutions in the system through the various tasks involved in doing the analysis. Through these various tasks, the overall quality of a system can be easily modified or improved and occurrences of errors can ultimately be reduced.

1. A systems analysis process involves studying the actual business processes, understand where data is coming from, how it should be processed and what results are required.
2. This is to find the bottlenecks in data or in processing that results in performance degradation of an application software.
3. To sub-divide a more complex application system so that it can easily be managed.

System Analysis and Design | Information Systems Components

System Analysis – it is understanding and specifying in detail what an information system should do. It is also a detailed study of how the current system functions and assesses what users would like to see in new systems. System Analysis is a problem-solving process in which many people take part: scientists of relevant disciplines, stakeholders and decision makers. The main purpose of systems analysis is to help private and public policy-makers resolve the problems that they face in the short, medium, and long term.

System Design – it is a process of planning a new business system or replacing an existing one. It is also specifying in detail how the parts of an information system should be implemented. It implies a systematic and rigorous approach to design—an approach demanded by the scale and complexity of many systems problems. Systems design first appeared shortly before World War II as engineers grappled with complex communications and control problems.

We can differentiate two types of system design:

Logical design – business aspects – what has to be done? What processes should be performed? These questions must be asked before performing a certain design task.

Physical design – technical aspects – is concerned with hardware and software requirements, database tables and index structures.

Information System Components must come together in order to produce a Computer-based IS and they are:

1. Hardware includes all physical devices and materials used in information processing. It includes not only machines, such as computers and other equipment, but also all data media, that is, all tangible objects on which data is recorded, from sheets of paper to magnetic disks.
2. Software includes all sets of information processing instructions. This generic concept of software includes not only the sets of operating instructions called programs, which direct and control computer hardware, but also the sets of information processing instructions needed by people, called procedures.
3. Data is raw facts and can take many forms, including traditional alphanumeric data, composed of numbers and alphabetical and other characters that describe business transactions and other events and entities.
4. Telecommunications Networks consist of computers, communications processors, and other devices interconnected by communications media and controlled by communications software.
5.People are required for the operation of all information systems. They include end users and IS specialists.

Components in IS

Using information systems effectively requires an understanding of the organisation, management, and information technology shaping the system.

by : Mahendra Nyaupane