Computerized Management Information System by Joseph F. KellyReview by: Alfred L. Kahl Jr.Operations Research, Vol. 19, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1971), pp. 837-838Published by: INFORMSStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/168917 .

Accessed: 09/05/2014 18:05

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

INFORMS is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Operations Research.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.138 on Fri, 9 May 2014 18:05:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Reviews 837

greater coverage than extended on such points as: obtaining a discrete series for analysis from a continuously occurring phenomenon, using the parameters of an autoregressive integrated moving-average model to describe the average charac- teristics of the signal that it represents, and building an empirical linear transfer function model for a system, which although not known, could be intrinsically nonlinear.

Despite these differences, Box AND JENKINS have arranged under one cover the successful marriage of statistical principles and practical considerations to a unified and useful methodology of wide appeal. Whether as a classroom text or reference for the practitioner, the utility of this approach guarantees that this book will never occupy only space in any library.

STUART JAY DEUTSCH

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn

JOSEPH F. KELLY, Computerized Management Information System, The Macmillan Co., New York, N.Y., 1970, 533 pages, $10.95

T HIS BOOK is apparently intended to be used as a text, since it has end-of- chapter questions (but no problems), but it is doubtful that it could be used,

by itself, in any academic program. The inside cover includes a flow-chart reading guide for ten potential audiences, including graduate, undergraduate, and junior college students. The book, if used at all in an academic setting, would be most appropriate for the junior college level. Since the author identifies the lack of appropriate management know-how as the major limiting factor in the develop- ment and use of computerized management-information systems, the book is prob- ably most appropriate for management personnel who desire an orientation to the MIS field. Although it claims to be a definitive study of MIS, the book falls far short of this worthy goal, hence its value as a reference is limited.

The major contribution of the book is its description of the contents of many IBM publications which are otherwise unavailable to the majority of computer users. The author's experience within IBM and his access to these publications have enabled him to produce a book that may be useful to some non-IBM com- puter-systems analysts. The IBM way, however, is not necessarily the best way, even if IBM is the world's largest computer manufacturer.

The book is organized into 11 chapters of greatly varying length, with the following titles: A Perspective, Development of MIS, Management Information Systems, Analysis of MIS, Case Studies of MIS Efforts, MIS and the Business Plan- ning environment, the Systems Effort, Data Management, Financial Considera- tions, Systems Control, and The Future.

Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the book and concentrates on the significances of MIS to the firm. Chapter 2 provides historical background on the capabilities of computers in business. Chapter 3 defines MIS, Chapter 4 provides a modular buildup to MIS based on 7 subsystems, and Chapter 5 described SAGE,

SABRE, OMNI and two other MIS. Chapter 6 discusses the planning aspects of MIS,

Chapter 7 covers the design of MIS, while Chapter 8 discusses several approaches to the management of the necessary data base; Chapter 9 covers the financial as-

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.138 on Fri, 9 May 2014 18:05:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

838 The Analyst's Bookshelf

pects of MIS building, and Chapter 10 covers the programming effort. The last chapter discusses the future changes foreseen by the author as a result of more widespread use of computerized Mis.

An operations researcher will find OR mentioned only in the chapter on MIs and the Business Planning Environment (Chapter 6) in a section that bears little direct relation to anything else in the book, although the reader might be expected to see the usefulness of OR in the design of computerized Mis. There is a clear, rather brief description of linear programming followed by discussions of simulation and network theory. Only the discussion of simulation is directly related (by the author) to computerized Mis. Although several other sections of the book make reference to queuing, this chapter does not provide any discussion of this topic. For an OR man, there is nothing new here; for the uninitiated manager, Kelly's 80 pages of OR may be useful in helping him to communicate with his firm's OR specialists.

Typographical and grammatical errors abound, including two errors on the first page. Although the book was published in 1970, page 51 includes a forecast of computer utilization for the year 1970, or is this another typographical error? Page 125 discusses exponentional smoothing and the appropriate size of alpha after giving a formula that contains no exponent. A long discussion of IBM's OMNI

system, beginning on page 219, describes it in future conditional terms although the footnote is dated 1963-does the author mean to say that OMNI had not been implemented by 1970? Surely IBM can do better than that! But be patient, dear reader, on page 305 you will find that the system was indeed a success! On page 516 there is a prediction of U.S. GNP for 1975 of $858 billion, but 1970 GNP was already larger than that-must we now expect a depression? These are just a few of the many errors that detract from the usefulness of the book and lead to the conclusion that it is just a first draft rushed into print without proper editorial effort.

In summary, this book has very little justification as a text or reference for computer professionals or for OR practitioners. The author has fallen far short of his goal and the resulting book is very disappointing.

ALFRED L. KAHL, JR.

University of Illinois and University of Tunis

Books Received

BERTRAM L. AMSTADTER, Reliability Mathematics, McGraw-Hill, New York, N.Y., 1971, 408 pages, $17.50.

KENNETH J. ARROW, Theory of Risk-Bearing, Markham Publishing Company, Chicago, Ill., 1971, 278 pages, $10.95.

N. P. BHATIA AND G. P. SZEG6, Stability Theory of Dynamical Systems, Springer- Verlag, New York, N.Y., 1971, 225 pages, $16.00.

RAYMOND N. BLAIR AND C. WILSON WHITSTON, Elements of Industrial Systems Engineering, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971, 301 pages, $9.50.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.138 on Fri, 9 May 2014 18:05:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions