Beyond Spreadsheets: Tools for Building Decision Support Systems

D ecision support systems (DSSs) are software products that help users apply analytical and scientific methods to decision making. They work by using models and algorithms from disciplines such as decision analysis, mathematical programming and optimization, stochastic modeling, simulation, and logic modeling. DSS products can execute, interpret, visualize, and interactively analyze these models over multiple scenarios. In recent years, the growing popularity of online analytical processing, data warehousing, and supply chain management has led to an increased interest in the development of decision support systems. Decision support tools could assist decision-makers in problems involving risk management, the allocation of scarce resources, and the need to balance conflicting objectives. When well implemented and used wisely, DSSs can significantly improve the quality of an organization’s decision making. However, building a DSS requires significant expertise in decision analysis, programming, and user interface design. A DSS can also need to connect in real time with other enterprise applications, further complicating the task. For these reasons, the broad use of DSSs—compared with, say, database management systems—has not occurred. What’s missing is sophisticated tool support for developing DSSs. One current solution is a DSS generator,1 a kit or environment for developing an application-specific DSS. DSS generators provide tools that make it easier and faster to develop models, data, and user interfaces that are customized to the application’s requirements. Using a DSS generator reduces DSS development to a decision analysis task—which requires expertise in decision analysis and mathematical modeling—rather than a programming task. DSS generators are crucial to the success of DSSs in practice. In this article, we describe the state of the art in DSS generator software, specifically in the realm of decision analysis methods (see the “Decision Analysis” sidebar).2 Decision analysis techniques account for the uncertain, dynamic, and multicriteria aspects of decisions. Essentially, they aid the evaluation of alternatives in the face of trade-offs. Well-known decision analysis methods include decision trees and influence diagrams. Here we briefly describe the features of 11 commercially available DSS generators that specialize in decision Co m pu tin g Pr ac tic es