Flexible decision support in dynamic inter-organisational networks

John Collins, Wolfgang Ketter, Maria Gini

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Scopus citations

Abstract

An effective Decision Support System (DSS) should help its users improve decision making in complex, information-rich environments. We present a feature gap analysis that shows that current decision support technologies lack important qualities for a new generation of agile business models that require easy, temporary integration across organisational boundaries. We enumerate these qualities as DSS Desiderata, properties that can contribute both effectiveness and flexibility to users in such environments. To address this gap, we describe a new design approach that enables users to compose decision behaviours from separate, configurable components, and allows dynamic construction of analysis and modelling tools from small, single-purpose evaluator services. The result is what we call an evaluator service network that can easily be configured to test hypotheses and analyse the impact of various choices for elements of decision processes. We have implemented and tested this design in an interactive version of the MinneTAC trading agent, an agent designed for the Trading Agent Competition for Supply Chain Management.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)436-448
Number of pages13
JournalEuropean Journal of Information Systems
Volume19
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2010

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Service composition supported by semantic descriptions

Keywords

  • Semantic Web
  • autonomous agent
  • decision support
  • service composition

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