The information revolution: Systems analysis

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Systems analysis

The design of information systems is called systems analysis, and is carried out by systems analysts. The detailed imple­mentation of these designs will normally be carried out by other people in the organization, including computer pro­grammers. The work of systems analysts, programmers, and other data processing personnel is described in Chapter 9.

Systems analysis involves the investigation and analysis of an information system, and will have as its result:

• A specification of the inputs and the outputs of the system. In the case of an invoicing system, for example, this specification will include the numbers of customers and products that are involved, numbers of transactions, and the reports that are required.

• A specification of the data that needs to be stored in the system, and the structure of the files that are to hold the data. These specifications are called data dictionaries and file formats respectively.

• A specification of the computer hardware and software that will be required.

It is the task of computer programmers to write the pro­ grams needed to implement the system. Computer program­ming is covered in Chapter 4.

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