10.

3 Types of DSS
DSS, may either be
• Model Driven DSS
• Data Driven DSS
10.3.1 Model Driven DSS
Model driven DSS uses following techniques
• What-If analysis
Attempt to check the impact of a change in the assumptions (input
data) on the
proposed solution e.g. What will happen to the market share if the
advertising budget increases by 5 % or 10%?
• Goal Seek Analysis
Attempt to find the value of the inputs necessary to achieve a desired
level of output. It
uses “backward” solution approach e.g. a DSS solution yielded a profit
of $2M. What will be the necessary sales volume to generate a profit of
$2.2M?
These are primarily stand alone systems isolated from major
organizational information systems (finance, manufacturing, HR, etc).
They are developed by end users and are not reliant on central
information systems control. These systems combine
• Use of a strong model, and
• Good user interface to maximize model utility
They are not usually data intensive, hat is very large data bases are
usually not need for model-driven DSS.
They use data and parameters usually provided by decision makers to
aid in analyzing a situation.
10.3.2 Data Driven DSS
As opposed to model driven DSS, these systems use large pools of
data found in major organizational systems. They help to extract
information from the large quantities of data stored. These systems
rely on Data Warehouses created from Transaction Processing
systems.
• They use following techniques for data analysis
• Online analytical processing, and
• Data mining
Components of DSS
There are two major components
• DSS data base – is a collection of current and historical data from
internal external sources. It can be a massive data warehouse.
• Decision Support Software system – is the set of software tools used
for data analysis. For instance
• Online analytical processing (OLAP) tools
• Data mining tools
• Models
Data Warehouse
• A data warehouse is a logical collection of information.
• It is gathered from many different operational databases used to
create business intelligence that
supports business analysis activities and decision-making tasks.
• It is primarily, a record of an enterprise's past transactional and
operational information, stored in a
database designed to favour efficient data analysis and reporting.
• The term data warehouse generally refers to the combination of
many different databases across an
entire enterprise.
• Data warehouses contain a wide variety of data that present a
coherent picture of business conditions at
a single point in time.
• Data warehouses are generally batch updated at the end of the day,
week or some period. Its contents are typically historical and static and
may also contain numerous summaries.
11.3 Types of Models Used in DSS
• Physical Models
• Narrative Models
• Graphic Models
• Mathematical Models
11.3.1 Physical Models
• Physical models are three dimensional representation of an entity
(Object / Process). Physical models used in the business world include
scale models of shopping centres and prototypes of new automobiles.
The physical model serves a purpose that cannot be fulfilled by the real
thing, e.g. it is much less expensive for shopping centre investors and
automakers to make changes in the designs of their physical models than
to the final product themselves.
11.3.2 Narrative Models
The spoken and written description of an entity as Narrative model is
used daily by managers and surprisingly, these are seldom recognized as
models.
For instance
11.3.3 Graphic Models
These models represent the entity in the form of graphs or pictorial
presentations. It represents its entity with an abstraction of lines,
symbols or shapes. Graphic models are used in business to communicate
information. Many company’s annual reports to their stockholders
contain colorful graphs to convey the financial condition of the firm.
For Instance
Bar graphs of frequently asked questions with number of times they are
asked.
11.3.4 Mathematical Models
They represent Equations / Formulae representing relationship between
two or more factors related to each other in a defined manner.
Types of Mathematical Models
Mathematical models can further be classified as follows, based on
• Influence of time – whether the event is time dependant or related
• Degree of certainty – the probabilities of occurrence of an event
• Level of optimization – the perfection in solution the model will
achieve.
Group DSS
When people responsible for decision making are geographically
dispersed or are not available at a place at the same time, GDSS is
used for quick and efficient decision making.
GDSS is characterized by being used by a group of people at the same
time to support decision making. People use a common computer or
network, and collaborate simultaneously.
An electronic meeting system (EMS) is a type of computer software
that facilitates group decision-making within an organization. The
concept of EMS is quite similar to chat rooms, where both restricted or
unrestricted access can be provided to a user/member.
DSS vs. GDSS
DSS can be extended to become a GDSS through
• The addition of communication capabilities
• The ability to vote, rank, rate etc
• Greater system reliability
11.4 Knowledge / Intelligent Systems
Before we proceed with defining these systems, first we should have
clear concept of Knowledge Management.
The set of processes developed in an organization to create, gather,
store, maintain and apply the firm’s knowledge is called Knowledge
Management. Hence the systems that aid in the creation and
integration of new knowledge in the organization are called
knowledge systems.
There are two questions
Who are they built for?
This refers to defining the knowledge workers for whom the
knowledge system is being built. The term refers to people who
design products and services and create knowledge for an
organization. For instance
Engineers
Architects
Scientists
• Knowledge systems are specially designed in assisting these
What are they built for?
Every knowledge system is built to maintain a specific form of
knowledge. Hence it needs to be defined in the start, what the system
would maintain. There are major types of knowledge.
• Explicit knowledge – Structured internal knowledge e.g. product
manuals, research reports, etc.
• External knowledge of competitors, products and markets
• Tacit knowledge – informal internal knowledge, which resides in the
minds of the employees but has not been documented in structured
form.
Knowledge systems promote organizational learning by identifying,
capturing and distributing these forms of knowledge.

11.5 Knowledge Support Systems (KSS) / Intelligent Systems

These systems are used to automate the decision making process, due
to its high-level-problem-solving support. KSS also has the ability to
explain the line of reasoning in reaching a particular solution, which
DSS does not have.
Intelligent Systems
Knowledge systems are also called intelligent systems. The reason is
that once knowledge system is up and running, it can also enable non
experts to perform tasks previously done by experts. This amounts to
automation of decision making process i.e. system runs independently
of the person making decisions.
Artificial Intelligence
“Artificial intelligence is the ability of a machine to replicate the human
thought processes. The way humans proceed to analyze a problem
and find appropriate solutions, similarly computers are geared up to
follow human logic to solve problems.”
These knowledge-based applications of artificial intelligence have
enhanced productivity in business, science, engineering, and the
military. With advances in the last decade, today's expert systems
clients can choose from dozens of commercial software packages with
easy-to-use interfaces.
The most popular type of intelligent systems is the Expert System.
Expert System
An expert system is a computer program that attempts to represent
Examples are
• Medical diagnosis,
• Equipment repair,
• Investment analysis,
• Financial, estate and insurance planning,
• Vehicle routing,
• Contract bidding
11.6 Components of an Expert System
There are four main components of Expert systems
• User Interface: to enable the manager to enter instructions and
information into an expert system to receive information from it.
• Knowledge Base: it is the database of the expert system. It contains
rules to express the logic of the problem.
• Inference engine: it is the database management system of the
expert system. It performs reasoning by using the contents of the
knowledge base.
• Development engine – it is used to create an expert system.
Executive Support Systems (ESS)
This Computer Based Information System (CBIS) is used by senior
managers for strategic decision making.
The decisions at this level are non-routine and require judgment and
evaluation. They draw summarized information from internal MIS and
Decision Support Systems. These systems deal with external influences
on an organization as well.
• New Tax laws, now project possibility
• Competitors
• Acquisitions, take-overs, spin offs etc.
They filter, compress and track critical data so as to reduce time and
effort required to obtain information useful for executives. They are not
designed to solve specific problems. They are generalized to be
capable of dealing with changing problems. Since executives have little
contact with all levels of the organization, ESS uses more graphical
interface for quick decision making.
ESS vs. DSS
ESS implies more of a war room style graphical interface that overlooks
the entire enterprise. A decision support system (DSS) typically
provides a spreadsheet style "what if?" analysis capability, often for