YARDSTICK INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE

MASTERS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION-2013

Course:
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS-MBA 642

Assignment:

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS ASSIGNMENT - 1

By: DANIEL AWOKE

ID Number: MAO/1522/13

Course Manager: WONDIMENEH MAMMO (ASST. PROF)

MARCH, 2022
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS – ASSIGNMENT 1

QUESTION 1: ANSWER

a) GOAL OF THE ORGANIZATION

THE ORGANIZATION - HKB CONSTRUCTION PLC

HKB Construction PLC is a private business organisation established in 2014 GC by three

professional founding members with start-up capital of 14,320,000 ETB. The company is
registered and licenced with Grade One Water Works Constructor (WWC-I) under Ministry
of Water, Irrigation and Energy.

The main objective and responsibility of the company is providing high quality and reliable
Water and Water related Construction services. Accordingly the main goal of HKB
Construction Plc is providing the best quality and reliable Water supply, Irrigation, Water
treatment, Dam construction, and other Water related Construction services to its customers.

COMPANY STRATEGIC GOAL

VISION: To be one of the leading private companies in Water supply, Irrigation and Civil
work construction services in the Horn of Africa by 2030 and providing advanced Irrigation
and Agricultural Construction services to enhance the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP)
of our Country.

MISSION: To provide our customers with valued high quality construction solutions just on
time, using our expertise in complex and simple:
 Urban and rural water supply construction
 Large and small scale irrigation and pond
 Rural and urban drainage and Sewerage System construction
 Modern land preparation for Irrigation of Sugar cane plantation and
 Flood Protection construction and Environmental impact mitigation

VALUES: Our values stand on a foundation of Integrity, Quality and Safety.

 People are the heart of our organization.
 Customers are our valued partners.
 Performance excellence is our commitment.
 Profitable Growth is imperative.

1
b) COMPONENTS OF THE ORGANIZATION

COMPANY MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE

To achieve its strategic goal the company is managed by Board of directors, which is
composed mainly of the owners of the company. At Operational level the company is
managed by General Manager who is appointed by the Board of directors. The overall
Organisational Structure of our company is demonstrated below.
With its management structure the company is arranged in to components having different
departments to carry out its day to day works.
Generally, HKB Construction plc basic functional units are discussed as follow:

Human Resources Department

The HR department is responsible for staff recruitment and training, record keeping,
compensation and benefits, insurance, and employee relations issues.

Financial Department
The financial department is responsible for management of the company’s cash flow and
ensuring there are sufficient funds available to meet the day to day payments.

Marketing and Supply Chain Department

The marketing department is responsible for market research, marketing strategy, sales,
advertising, promotion, pricing, product development, and public relations activities.
Purchasing department’s main role is purchasing supplies and materials used in the projects
and company daily needs. They need to compare among different suppliers and finding the
items with correct prices and qualities.

Project Operations Department

Project department is responsible for scheduling and managing for each project. The project
manager needs to decide the budget, assign employees and their duties to complete the job,
oversee the safety of workers. They need to make sure the construction work can be well
completed according to the contract. Under this department, the engineering department is
responsible for the planning of the construction project. This includes conducting surveys,
engaging in research, analyzing results, planning the construction and supporting all technical
issues during the project.

2
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE OF
HKB CONSTRUCTION PLC BOARD OF DIRECTORS
(Source: HR Department of the Company)
GENERAL MANAGER

HUMAN RESOURCE OFFICE OPERATIONAL MARKETTING AND SUPPLY STRATEGIC

FINANCE MANAGER
MANAGER ENGINEER MANAGER CHAIN MANAGER PLANER

QUANTITY ELECTROMECHANICAL QUALITY AND

SITE ENGINEER
SURVEYOR EXPERT MATERIAL ENGINEER

FORMAN ACCOUNTANT

GAROUP
MASON CARPENTER BARBENDER PLUMBER ELECTRICIAN
LEADER

LABORERS TIME KEEPER

c) INTERRELATIONSHIP AMONG COMPONENTS (INPUT, PROCESS, OUTPUT)

HKB Construction Plc is utilizing the following work execution procedure for every work
done by the company. Generally, the execution procedures indicates the interrelationship
among the components the company. For example at the bid identification stage marketing
personnel will identify a bid that is within the company’s technical and financial scope and
identified bids must be approved by Engineers who will conduct site visit and requanesance.
Data collected from Bid documents and site visit report are then analysed to be approved for
further processing.

BID IDENTIFICATION & PROCESSING BID PROPOSAL CONTRACT SITE

SITE VISIT AND REQUANESANCE PREPARATION AGREMENT HANDOVER&
& BID PRICING SIGNING ADVANCE
PROCESSING

PROJECT

Tende  Activity scheduling
r PLANIING AND
 Resource schedule
follow SCHEDULING
-up  Financial schedule
 Resou
rce
identi
ficatio MOBILIZATION
n
 Labou
r Surveying
Identi Plan and Profile CONSTRUCTION
ficatio Electromechanical
DEMOBILIZATIONn REDESIGN
 Enviro
nment
 Material test
 Soil Test
PROJECT  Concrete test QUALITY TESTING
HANDOVER  Rebar Test
 Water Test AND ASSURANCE

TESTING AND MONITORING CAMP

PROJECT EXCUTION
COMMISSIONING AND CONSTRUCTION
EVALUATION


Pump test  Weekly, Monthly
Generator progress Report
test  Schedule
Pipe test modification and
Reservoir revision
Test  Take off sheet
Water point and payment
test certificate
Operation  Man power
training report
As built  Payroll report
Drawing Time sheet
 Petty cash 4
management
During bid preparation the company’s Human resource department should provide the
available manpower data to prepare manpower proposal and schedule in the technical bid
preparation. The financial and technical offers for the bid are also prepared according to
data’s and information obtained from finance department.
If the bid offered by the company are accepted by the client the next step will be preparing a
project schedule which is performed by coordinated efforts of different personnel’s from
Engineering, Finance, Supply chain and human resource departments. Accordingly a grand
schedule will be prepared in which man power assignment, machinery allocation, project
Finance schedule, Material sully schedule and activity schedules are prepared. This requires
coordinated efforts of all departments in the com company. At such preparation stage the use
of software and hardware such as Computers, Microsoft Project, ArchiCad, Spreadsheets and
AutoCAD are employed.

5
QUESTION 2: ANSWER

COMPONENTS OF INFORMATION SYSTEM – HKB CONSTRUCTION PLC

An information System can be seen as the organized combination of people, hardware,

Software, communication, networks, data resources, and procedures that stores, retrieves,
transforms and disseminates, information in an organization. I will discuss below these
components of information system within the context of the organisation under consideration:

Hardware
Hardware represents the physical components of an information system. Computers, disk
drives, printers, scanners and flash drives are all visible examples. In HKB Construction plc
hard wares such as Desk top, Laptop, Printer, and Scanner are used by the company during
Bid Preparation, Project execution and for administrative works. During project execution
specialized hardware such as GPS, Automatic levelling instrument and Total station are used
to collect surveying data for construction projects.

Software
Software is a set of instructions that tell the hardware what to do. Software is not tangible – it
cannot be touched. Programmers create software programs by following a specific process to
enter a list of instructions that tell the hardware what to do. In HKB Construction Plc
software such as AutoCAD is used to prepare project design, Spreadsheet is used for
analyzing financial data of a project and the company as a whole, project costs are analyzed
using spreadsheet, Project schedules are prepared using MS Project on Microsoft office.
Accounting software Peachtree is used by the organisations accountant to record, process and
store financial data.

Data
The third component is data. Data can be seen as a collection of non-disputable raw facts.
Data can be seen or heard, but by themselves, they don’t give you any additional meanings
beyond the data itself. In HKB Construction Plc different kinds of data’s are collected,
processed and organized in some fashion, and use it to make decisions. For example
surveying data’s are collected by Surveyors before commencement of any construction work.
These surveying data are used by project engineers to get an insight about the locations of
construction project, layout of the project etc.

6
Networking Communication
The components of hardware, software, and data have long been considered the core
technology of information systems. However, networking communication is another
component of an IS that some believe should be in its own category. An information system
can exist without the ability to communicate. For instance, the first personal computers were
stand-alone machines that did not have access to the Internet. Information Systems, however,
have evolved since they were developed. The most commonly used network communication
in HKB Construction Plc is an internet.

People
People built computers for people to use. This means that there are many different categories
in the development and management of information systems to help organizations to create
value and improve productivity, such as:

 Users: these are the people who actually use an IS to perform a job function or task.
 Technical Developers: these are the people who actually create the technologies used to
build an information system.
 Business Professionals: these are the CEOs, owners, managers, entrepreneurs, employees
who use IS to start or expand their business to perform their job functions such as
accounting, marketing, sales, human resources, support customers, among others.
 IT Support: These specialized professionals are trained to keep the information systems
running smoothly to support the business and keep it safe from illegal attacks.

In HKB Construction Plc Surveyors, Construction engineers, accountants, and administrative

workers use the above components of the information system during executing their tasks.

Process

The last component of information systems is Process. A business process is a series of steps
undertaken to achieve a desired outcome or goal. Businesses have to continually innovate to
either create more revenues through new products and services that fulfill customers’ needs
or to find cost-saving opportunities in the ways they run their companies. As discussed above
HKB Construction Plc uses a well-organized process in executing different tasks and
projects. Starting from project identification up to project handover the company utilizes its
human and physical resource to achieve its objective.

7
QUESTION 3: ANSWER

Based on the narration provided about the Financial Management system of YIC I have
identified the following Information System characteristics that are described in the narration:

Functionality
As it can be understood from the narration, when the old system was transferred into the new
computer which uses windows 10, the system has not become operational. This implies that
the new system has a functionality issue. This implies that the system under consideration in
YIC must perform the function that the company expected. Its performance should be good
enough for the intended use the company is expecting.

Simplicity
The difficulty of new system for finance staff indicates that the new system has an issue of
simplicity. The new system must make it easy for the system users to understand the system,
by removing as much complexity as possible from the system.
The ease with which you can modify a data system, and adapt it to changing requirements, is
closely linked to its simplicity and its abstractions: simple and easy-to-understand systems are
usually easier to modify than complex ones.

Compatibility
The systems failure to be integrated with some of the printers previously used by the
department indicates that the system has a compatibility issue that its features are not
compatible with the hardware’s of the company. Hence the new system being implemented
should be compatible with the company’s existing hardware’s as well as the old system.

Security
The new system under implementation gives uncontrolled access to all staff in the department
without considering their level of responsibility. This could rise security issue under which
the confidential data and information of the company could be accessed by ineligible peoples.
So the accessibility of the system must be in such a way that the sensitive and confidential
data and information of the company are protected against any insecurity. This can be done
by restricting the accessibility of confidential data and information to authorized personnel
considering their level of responsibility.