The development of an integrated information system for a research and technology institute: the case of IPEN

This paper reports the history of the development of an integrated information system dedicated to managing the technical activities of the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute, a governmental research and technology institute in Brazil. The start up of this development was the engagement of the Institute in a management improvement project based on the excellence criteria model of the National Quality Foundation - a Brazilian version of the American quality award, Malcolm Baldridge. After the writings of the first managerial report following this model, it was identified that a Director Plan needed to be organized and implemented. In order to support the new planning process the design and implementation of a new management information system named SIGEPI was immediately initiated. The implementation of this system followed a strategy of integrating databases already available and developing new ones in order to facilitate the data collecting process and to improve the quality and the reliability of these data. This paper describes the evolution of SIGEPI, its main features and also reports the difficulties faced during almost ten years of developments. The success factors of this development - detailed later in this paper - can be classified in three groups: strategic, technical and behavioral ones. (author)