What are the types of Information Systems?

Transaction Processing System (TPS) : Organizations perform routine, repetitive tasks. For example employees are paid at regular intervals, customers place purchase orders and are billed and expenses are monitored and compared to budgets.

The information system that supports such tasks is called ‘Transaction Processing System’. A TPS supports the monitoring, collection, storage and processing of the organization’s basic transactions. It also provides the input data for many other applications.

 Management Information System (MIS) : These systems access, organize, summarize and display information for supporting routine decision making in the functional areas. A MIS provides reports about topics like operational efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. It prepares these reports by extracting information from the corporate database and processing it according to the needs of the user. MISs’ are used for monitoring, planning and control. They also enable managers to detect possible problems in their early stages.

Support Systems : Support systems for office employees began to emerge in the late 1960s. Airline reservation systems are the best example of this development. Electronic communication is only one aspect of what is now known as an Office Automation System (O.A.S.). Decision support system is used to provide computerized support for complex, non-routine decisions.

Intelligent Systems : By the mid 1980s, managerial application of the so called artificial intelligence began, creating intelligent systems that seem to be able to replicate the thought process of humans. Expert systems are advisory systems that provide the stored knowledge of experts to non-experts, so that the latter can solve difficult problems.