Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sy ste ms
Definitions of a Decision
Support System
General definition - a system providing both
problem-solving and communications capabilities
for semistructured problems
Specific definition - a system that supports a
single manager or a relatively small group of
managers working as a problem-solving team in
the solution of a semistructured problem by
providing information or making suggestions
concerning specific decisions.
Decision Making
■ Simon’s types of decisions
– Programmed
– Nonprogrammed
■ Simon’s phases (activities) of decision
making
– Intelligence
– Design
– Choice
– Review
The Decision Support System
Concept
■ Gory and Scott-Morton coined the phrase
‘DSS’ in 1971, about ten years after MIS
became popular
■ Structured problems could be solved by
algorithms and decision rules
■ Unstructured problems have no structure in
Simon’s phases
■ Semistructured problems have structured
and unstructured phases
The Gorry and Scott Morton Grid
Management levels
Operational Management Strategic
control control planning
Structured Accounts Budget analysis-- Tanker fleet
receivable engineered costs mix
Degree of Order entry Short-term Warehouse and
problem forecasting factory location
structure Inventory
control
Degree
of
problem
Retrieve Analyze Prepare Estimate Propose Make solving
information entire reports decision decisions decisions support
elements files from consequen-
multiple ces
files
Degree of
Little Much
complexity of the
problem-solving
system
The DSS Focuses on Semistructured Problems
Report GDSS
Mathematical GDSS
writing software
Models software
software
Database
Decision
support
system
Environment
Data Communication Information
Legend:
Contents of the Database are
Used by Three Software
Subsystems
1.
Designate a
groupware champion
2.
Pick a pilot project
3.
Define the problem
4.
Select the groupware