The Design And Implementation Of An Office Management System

Information Systems (IS) are now utilized in a wide range of application areas, and correspondingly diverse types of systems have emerged and various methodological approaches to IS design have been developed. Since automation of work office work is one of the fastest growing applications areas of IS many research efforts have been conducted during the last few years to provide some guidelines with systematic foundations for the design of Office Management System (OIS).The original characteristics of an office information system, when compared to a conventional information system, imply the need for developing new design methodologies and models, or for substantially changing existing design approaches. In this thesis particular emphasis is given to the early phases of the design process, commonly called "conceptual" or "logical" design phases looking for enhance the final model to be applied. Conceptual design is a central phase of office system design: It provides correct and complete functional requirements from which the office prototype will be developed and the final architecture chosen. The basic requirements for conceptual design methodologies in the office environment are derived from the analysis and evaluation of existing design approaches.The conceptual design of an OIS constitutes a complex task. In fact, in designing an OIS, it is first necessary to define office and business goals, which are not always evident, in order to understand what the work globally performed in the office is, and how the system to be designed will affect the work. The analysis of office work that must be carried out in order to gain such knowledge is also complex, due to the nature of office work itself, which consists of a large number of operational and decision support activities in general, loosely structured with many possible anomalies.