A Decision Support System for Effective Systems Analysis and Planning

Abstract

Decision makers are increasingly confronted with complex and unstructured problems. To solve a problem they must recognize the factors involved and identify the relationships among various decision variables and important tradeoffs that are usually inherent in such problem areas. The following study by integrating Analytical Hierarchy Process, Goal Programming and the Delphi method, proposes a decision support model that can effectively be utilized by decision makers to identify the components of a problem, the interactions among various decision variables, and the important tradeoffs among costs, returns, and the preferences of the decision makers. The proposed model is an effective systems analysis tool; it investigates the full problem, systematically searches for alternatives and their consequences, and it provides for experts judgements, preferences and intuitions to bear on the problem. To test the practicability and applicability, the proposed model was directly applied to evaluate the rural road projects of the Bureau of India Affairs (BIA).