The Computer Revolution/MIS/ESS

ESS
It is a specialized DSS that includes all the hardware, software, data, procedures, and people used to assist senior levels, executives within the organization.

Executive Support System (ESS) is a reporting tool (software) that allows you to turn your organization's data into useful summarized reports. These reports are generally used by executive level managers for quick access to reports coming from all company levels and departments such as billing, cost accounting, staffing, scheduling, and more.

In addition to providing quick access to organized data from departments, some Executive Support System tools also provide analysis tools that predicts a series of performance outcomes over time using the input data. This type of ESS is useful to executives as it provides possible outcomes and quick reference to statistics and numbers needed for decision-making.

The exact reporting tools and outcome of an Executive Support System completely depends on the ESS developer and it's intended industry use. For example, Cambridge Systematics has ESS to support the investment planning process for the Ministry of Transportation. The features and functions of this Executive Support System are entirely different from the Executive Support System developed by Meditech, which is useful to health care organizations.

Several companies offer pre-designed Executive Support System packages (usually suited to one particular industry), while others offer packages which can be customized your organization's needs.

There are only a few different types of software systems that support the ESS:


 * Cambridge Systematics Executive Support System
 * MEDITECH Executive Support System

Source : retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/Executive_Support_System.html on March 13, 2007

Geographic Information Systems (GISs)



A geographic Information system (GIS) is an information system that combines geographic information such as maps and terrain data with other types of data such as information about customers, sales, population, income, in order to provide a better understanding of the relationships between the data. GISs are commonly used to make a variety of decisions that involve locations, such as finding the best location for a new store, analyzing the flood or tornado risk for a particular home or a neighborhood developing regional marketing plans, or detecting crime patterns for specific geographic locations. Visualizing a new store on a map, along with the data representing other factors such as traffic, population, weather, housing prices, household income, crime statistics, and also environmental concerns like wetlands or protected species that might hamper construction can help a manager select the optimal location.

GISs are also an essential component of emergency response and disaster relief systems. In 2005, first two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast, 60 volunteer GIS experts used GISs to assist in the rescue and disaster relief efforts. They used GISs to build search maps for rescue workers to translate street addresses of survivors requiring helicopter rescues into map coordinates for the helicopter pilots, and to create maps for various issues like electrical power had not been restored in those areas. GIS helps you answer questions and solve problems by looking at your data in a way that is quickly understood and easily shared. GIS technology can be integrated into any enterprise information system framework.