23-Ind-B4 Design of Information Systems · December 2017
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — December 2017 — 98-Ind-B4, Design of Information Systems. 3 hours; closed book, no calculator permitted. The exam comprises four parts: Part A (select 20 terms from the list given and explain each in a sentence or two, no more than 50 words, 2 marks each = 40 marks), Parts B and C (select 2 of 5 questions in each part, 11 marks each = 22 marks per part), and Part D (select 1 of 2 questions, 16 marks). Complete answers to every term and every question in all four parts follow below, not only the minimum selection a candidate would submit on exam day.
Reference texts: Laudon & Laudon, Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, 15th ed.; Schwalbe, Information Technology Project Management, 9th ed.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
A business process (Question 1, term 9) is a logically related set of structured activities and tasks — involving people, procedures, and information — that an organization performs, in a defined sequence and drawing on defined resources, to produce a specific product, service, or outcome. Most business processes span multiple functional areas, coordinating work that no single department could perform alone.
Manufacturing/production: assembling a finished product from purchased components, from a production schedule through to a completed unit ready for shipment. Sales/marketing: identifying customers, generating and qualifying leads, and converting a lead through to a closed sale. Finance/accounting: processing accounts payable, from a received invoice through matching, approval, and payment. Human resources: hiring an employee, from posting a requisition through screening, interviewing, offer, and onboarding.
Information technology improves business processes by automating manual steps (removing time and error from repetitive tasks), by making information flow instantly across functional boundaries instead of via paper or ad-hoc communication, by enabling entirely new process designs that were not physically possible before (e.g., real-time inventory visibility across every warehouse simultaneously), and by capturing data throughout execution that then becomes an input to analytics and future decision-making.
1. Operational excellence — the accounts-payable process. An automated invoice-matching (three-way match) system compares a received invoice, the original purchase order, and the goods-receipt confirmation automatically, flagging only genuine discrepancies for human review instead of every invoice. This directly targets operational excellence: fewer errors, faster payment cycles, and lower processing cost per invoice.
2. Customer and supplier intimacy — the sales/marketing lead-to-close process. A CRM system (Question 1, term 16) consolidates every customer touchpoint into a single view, letting sales staff personalize outreach based on a prospect's full interaction history rather than treating every lead identically. This directly targets customer intimacy: a more tailored, relationship-aware sales process increases conversion and retention.
3. Improved decision-making — the manufacturing/production scheduling process. A real-time production-dashboard system pulls live data from the shop floor (machine status, throughput, defect rate) so a plant manager sees the actual state of production continuously rather than from a delayed end-of-shift report. This directly targets improved decision-making: management can react to a developing bottleneck or quality issue the same shift it occurs, not the next day.
