Information Systems Principles ATM as information system

Question

information systems are combinations of people, processes and technology that perform some useful function. They

• take some inputs and transform them to outputs

• work within a boundary and in an environment.

use these concepts to analyse a real information system to identify its features.

how an ATM can be viewed asan information system. 

Answer  

Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) is a hardware system where computer terminal having operating environment, applications related to banking processes and mechanical equipments are combined together with human interface such as keypad, card insert bay, currency counting system to provide the banking functionalities to customers.

Once it verifies then prompts the user to input the password. Password entered by customer is processed by bank server and verified. After verification ATM output the menu on display for the customer. Customer selects the menu item either by touch or pressing the key relevant to given item.  Further, ATM opens that pressed or touched item and asks the customer to do accordingly. Let user selects withdraw, then ATM asks to fill the amount and customer uses keypad to fill the amount to withdraw. Further ATM process the amount with   bank server and debit the amount from card linked account of customer and finally send the signal to mechanical bay to count the currency and eject them to out to be collected by customer.

In above description of functional process of ATM, inputs are taken as card information, PIN, amount to withdraw, touching or pressing relevant keys as per the ATM instruction to proceed. The outputs are the ATM menu having the items to be selected by customer, text boxes and other information by which ATM prompts for customer to enter. Magnetic card encoded values are read by reader and transformed into digital bits and   then transformed into electrical signal to send to the connected bank server. The transformation is taken by the processes and also the verification of PIN to authenticate the bank card holder customer processed by server of the bank Champeseus, Lee and Faure, 2014). The system as defined boundary and its works under that boundary, for same bank customer the boundary value for customer is higher than other bank customer. Customer can withdraw and deposit a limited amount as per the defined limit and boundary by the bank. The operating environment of ATM is very much secured by cryptographic protection and operating system such as Linux, and UNIX. There are so many subsystems integrated together in the ATM such as Mechanical Device like card reader, currency counter, display unit, processing units, keypad, network equipments, software and application related to various functionalities and Internet.  These all subsystems are integrated together to make the ATM functional Champeseus, Lee and Faure, 2014). Also, After finishing the process related to individual application credit and debit the feedback process is executed by integrated application to get customer feedback for the current service taken.

Therefore, ATM is fully information system that integrates the people process for banking application remotely from the bank.