A distributed decision support system (DDSS) is defined as a decision support system which supports distributed organizational decision making. The author develops and illustrates the DDSS concept and explores its usefulness in furthering research and practice in the DSS field. Distributed decision making is taken as the foundation for any DDSS. The domain for distributed decision support involves situations in which decision models are semi-structured and decision criteria are semi-determined among decision makers. This domain may be usefully understood as juxtaposed between two other domains, those of distributed communications and distributed computing. Alternative strategies for distributed decision support include decision ordering, information sharing, and negotiated choice. These strategies have distinctly different implications for system restrictiveness, guidance, and focus. >

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Distributed decision support systems: a perspective

Discusses the application of decision support systems (DSS) to assist in solving marketing decisions As the marketing environment becomes more competitive the pressure to gain the “edge” over your competitors becomes more intense Marketing decision support systems (MDSS) are valuable tools to assist in making marketing decisions to do just that! MDSS can be used to support, rather than replace, decision makers in the complex, semi or unstructured situations which are common in marketing problems They incorporate the personal judgement and experience of the user to improve the effectiveness, rather than the efficiency of decision making This means that managers will have more “quality” time to spend on analysis and planning for the future, rather than merely reflecting on the past Discusses different types of DSS within an environment where there are discrepancies over definition, jargon and suppliers’ claims

Marketing decision support systems

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National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis Spatial Decision Support Systems: A Bibliography

This paper deals with the problem of the decision support system for production planning from the viewpoint of two major functions: physical performance analysis and choice analysis. The first is make clear, through the physical performance analysis, the impact of decision variables on the system performance such as unfilled order rate for market demand, ratio of setup time, average inventory level of finished products and part items, and frequency of replanning. The second is to guide for selecting an alternative or setting the decision variables value, if management can, on the basis of the physical performance analysis results, provide a ranking, preference, or acceptable limits in terms of their contribution or importance to the production system. An example of the prototype DSS for the production planning is also presented from the above-mentioned viewpoint.

Decision support system for production planning—concept and prototype

In this paper, a model-based planning approach within the framework of distributed hierarchical enterprise management is developed. Suitable algorithms are provided, especially for the case of manufacturing companies. Requirements for a decision support system based on this concept are derived. Software agents in the context of a Multi-Agent-System (MAS) seem to be appropriate to implement the proposed concept. After the identification of the necessary agents, the system architecture is described. Computational results for the suggested algorithm are discussed.

An agent-based planning approach within the framework of distributed hierarchical enterprise management

Corporate planning and decision making is a complex but critical management process in multidivisional organizations. This process entails a determination of the objectives and operational constraints at various levels of management. The decision-making function in such large diversified corporations proceeds by assessing the decision alternatives at each level of management with reference to their mutual tradeoffs, and arriving at an equilibrium point. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for the design of an integrated DSS in hierarchical organizations. The proposed framework consists of five steps: Analysis of the corporate decision making process, building a model of the decision making process, configuring a DSS for this model, pilot study and implementation. We illustrate the proposed design principles by considering a three-level hierarchical organization and modeling the decision-making process within this organization. A case analysis of the proposed integrated framework is provided. The case study has been conducted with decision makers in a simulated business environment. This research has given rise to several new avenues of exploration and extensions of the proposed design. We present the conclusions from this study and directions for future research in this area. Our experience with this approach in the case analysis has been quite positive, and this suggests that similar results may be obtained in real world organizations as well. We are currently testing the proposed approach with a local organization.

G. Chandra Sekar

Papers

An integrated framework for decision support in corporate planning