Components Of Decision Support System Research Articles

Decision Support Systems: A summary, problems, and future trends

This paper critically examines issues confronting Decision Support Systems (DSS) in the business/management area. Due to the lack of acceptable definition of DSS, the characteristics and components of DSS are discussed in detail. It is pointed out that work activities that require decision making form a spectrum of problems ranging from structured problem to unstructured problem. It is further pointed out that personality and cognitive style can influence individuals' decision styles, and thus different decision aids will be sought. DSS development and applications are briefly described. Finally, the major problems facing current DSSs are outlined, and the future trends of DSS are described.

Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in River Basin Management

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are shown to provide a number of capabilities which are of particular use to river basin operation and planning. GIS systems have the ability to display and graphically summarize both the input data for the analytical models and the results of application of management models using that data. The graphical display of input data can assist interpretation of conditions within the basin through depiction of spatial and temporal patterns in that data. GIS can also reduce the time required to enter data and improve the reliability of that data by reducing the errors in the data. The ability to display the results graphically improves the man-machine interaction which is generally accepted as being an integral part of multi-objective water resources analysis. Another important role for GIS is its use as an efficient interface between the data base and the operational computer models. It is asserted, however, that GIS should not be considered a means of providing final answers to complex water resources planning issues. It should be seen, rather, as an important component of Decision Support Systems by which information on the basin issues is transferred to the decision maker for his consideration. Specific aspects of the application of GIS are discussed in relation to a hypothetical river basin system used primarily for hydroelectric energy generation.

Flexible management of computational models

Computational models constitute a major component of decision support systems, and their effective management is essential to the success of these systems. Many of the concepts that proved useful in data management are shown to be valid also for the management of the computational models. In particular, computational non-redundancy is defined and established as a major goal for the computational model management. Many subtle redundancies present in current decision support systems are demonstrated to cause considerable damage to the effectiveness of these systems. A functional architecture is described to detect and eliminate all computational redundancies.

An effective architecture for Decision Support Systems

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are, by nature, general- purpose systems, because they must support a variety of managers who have different decision styles and different problems. However, it seems that no effective general-purpose DSS have yet come into existence, although the components of DSS such as data base technology, modeling techniques, inexpensive graphic display etc., have progressed to the point where we should now be able to build effective DSS. This shortcoming seems to result from the following fact: Research on decision support has focused on data enlargement and model refinement, however, little attention has been paid to DSS architecture which integrates these components of DSS. It has not been well appreciated that DSS architecture itself facilitates learning about unstructured-problem solving and enables system evolution. In this paper, we propose a DSS architecture based on the study of unstructured-problem solving and considerations of the needs of managers as non-computer specialists. We illustrate this with a system realized using this architecture.