THE BENEFITS OF IS FOR CIM APPLICATIONS - A SURVEY

CIM integrates production, administrative, and support functions in a manufacturing firm by tying together separate automated systems. To id entify benefits from automating information systems (hereafter 'IS') a pplications, and to determine if and why different firms achieve diffe rent levels of benefit from their IS, structured interviews were held with managers of more than 300 manufacturing companies located in Isra el. This study's results show that the number of IS applications imple mented has a significant, positive relationship with the overall benef it derived by the organization from using its entire IS portfolio. The results further show that the benefit an organization derives from us ing an individual application depends not on the number of application s implemented, but rather on other organizational characteristics. Tra nsaction-processing applications generally provide greater benefits th an more decision-oriented applications, regardless of an organization' s characteristics. Benefits from decision-support and executive inform ation systems (DSS and EIS) are more closely linked to a company's dis tinctive operational and environmental characteristics.