KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS AND MANAGEMENT DECISION SUPPORT

In the past, corporate decision making has been aided by conventional decision support and database management tools. There are a number of aspects of decision making, particularly qualitative, where these tools offer minimal assistance (e.g., business trouble shooting). In an attempt to overcome these deficiencies, we have combined these conventional tools with knowledge systems technology, that is, inference-based reasoning, in order to create an intelligent decision support system. This article presents such a system, named BUCKS (BUsiness Control Knowledge System), developed to support business controllers and district managers in performing their business analysis within the Digital Equipment Corp. SWAS (Software Applications and Services) operation in Sweden.