Synopses & Reviews
Information systems engineering professionals perform the invaluable function of aiding knowledge workers in a variety of judgment and choice activities. Those who use decision support systems are involved in an important number of day-to-day activitiesfrom the design of aircraft flight control systems to management systems that enable better financial decisions. Decision support designers and users should function together to insure the development of appropriate information systems. Decision Support Systems Engineering describes how to establish a decision support system that unites the concerns of both system designers and users. Beginning with an outline of the generic components of a decision support system, readers are given a technologically rigorous, yet clear, tour of its assembly line basics. Data-base management systems, model-base management systems, and dialog generation and management systems are clearly described, with emphasis on how these make a decision support system feasible and practical. Using the framework of a total life cycle systems management process, the book describes approaches for developing appropriate integrated information systems architecturesapproaches that take into account user needs and the translation of user needs into system requirements. Hardware and software allocations of these requirements and the subsequent development of suitable hardware and software architectures are methodically detailed. Also considered in-depth is the subject of cognitive systems engineering, which recognizes and seeks to ameliorate inherent potential flaws in human information processing. Presented here are ways in which decision support systems can be used to avoid cognitive information-processing biases and errors. By placing decision support systems engineering firmly in the everyday work context, the book describes how computing, communication, and decision support technologies result in the creation of systems useful for the formulation, analysis, and interpretation of issues critical to groups and organizations. Complete with problems and case-study suggestions at the end of each chapter, Decision Support Systems Engineering demonstrates for students in systems engineering, information systems, computer science, and management how vital is the interface between designer and user when creating decision support systems flexible enough for the challenges of the real world.
Synopsis
Provides a comprehensive discussion of the design and use of decision support systems. It describes the generic technological components of such systems, emphasizing system requirements analysis and specification, the use of alternative analytical methods and how systems can be evaluated. It then discusses the formulation of user needs, their translation into system requirements, the hardware and software allocation of these requirements, and the development of suitable hardware and software architectures.
About the Author
About the author ANDREW P. SAGE is the Dean of the School of Information Technology and Engineering at George Mason University. He is also the first American Bank Professor of Information Technology. Dr. Sage is the Editor of the Wiley Series in Systems Engineering and is also author of a number of books, among them Economic Systems Analysis: Microeconomics for Systems Engineering, Engineering Management and Project Selection, a coauthor of Introduction to Computer Systems: Analysis, Design, and Applications and the editor of System Design for Human Interaction and the Concise Encyclopedia of Information Processing in Systems and Organizations. Dr. Sage received his PhD from Purdue University.
Table of Contents
Data-Base Management Systems.
Model-Base Management Systems.
Dialog Generation and Management Systems.
Design and Evaluation of Decision Support Systems.
Information Processing in Individuals and Organizations.
Group and Organizational Decision Support Systems.
Operational Implementation, System Integration, and Environments for Decision Support Systems.
Index.