SYSTEM CONCEPTS & CONTROLS

 

System Concepts

 

The word `System' is used in day to day life very frequently in describing the subjects, as the traffic system, education system, business system, etc. The system provides a meaningful framework for describing and understanding the features and problems of the subject.

 

System is defined as a set of elements arranged in an orderly manner to accomplish an objective. Some examples are given in Table below:

 

Examples of System

 

System	Elements	Objective
Computer	Input, process and output devices. Operating system, compilers, packages, DBMS, personnel.	Process the data and provide information.
Accounting	Financial transactions, accounting principles and rules, transaction processing methods of accounting.	Process the transactions and produce monthly books of accounts and the information for financial management.
Business Organization	People, plant and machinery, product and services, communications, transport, materials.	Produce goods and services to achieve the business objectives of service, turnover and profits.

 

It is to be noted that a system is not a randomly arranged set. It is arranged with some logic governed by rules, regulations, principles and policies. Such an arrangement is also influenced by the objective the system desires to achieve. For example, if a computer system is designed to perform commercial data processing, then the elements will be the data entry devices a CPU, a disk, a memory, application programmes and a printer.

 

A system may have single input and multiple outputs or may have several inputs and outputs. For example, a business organization system has several inputs and multiple objectives, such as sales, profit, service and growth.  The choice of inputs and processing methodology is governed by the objectives set for the system.  Any misalignment in this arrangement would lead to a wasteful collection of inputs, and its processing will fail to achieve the desired objective.

 

All the systems operate in an environment. The environment may influence the system in its design and performance. When a system is designed to achieve certain objective, it automatically sets the boundaries for itself. The understanding of boundaries of the system is essential to bring clarity in explaining the system components and their arrangement.

 

Since the systems are designed for specific objectives/outputs, the designer provides a filter around the system to control the influence on the system. For example, take a manufacturing system, where the objective is to produce products of desired quality. Since the raw material and the processes are selected with this objective, the quality control systems exercise a control on the quality of incoming raw material and keep a continuous watch on the process parameters to keep the desired quality of production. The quality control system which protects the system from the undesirable influences of the environment.

 

The designer of the system, therefore, has to consider the environment and select appropriate inputs, and filtering mechanism to protect the system from the undue or undesirable influences of the environment.

 

Most of the failures of the systems lie in the area of selection of the inputs and the processes, and not providing the appropriate filtering systems.