ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this section of the chapter is to describe some of the issues pertinent to information systems (IS) planning, and outline one pharmaceutical company's approach to assembling and implementing such plans. Future IS planning will revolve around systems integration, and this section describes the planning of such activities. The section's objectives can be summarized as follows:
• Define IS and systems integration • Discuss why systems integration is important • Outline some of the benefits of systems integration • Describe the main characteristics of IS plans • Provide a methodology for preparing and implementing a plan • Give some examples of existing plans • Compare and contrast these plans • Arrive at some conclusions
The type of planning discussed here refers to standalone pharmaceutical manufacturing plants only. This section does not address the type of multienterprise, often international IS planning required to link entire pharmaceutical companies' R&D, manufacturing, and marketing operations together in the 1990s. Reference will be made to such companywide systems, however, where they link in with plant information systems.
