Decision Support System

The definition of Decision Support Systems (DSS)

Decision Support Systems (DSS) is a specific class of computerized information system that supports business and organizational decision-making activities.

A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, and/or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.


History of DSS

Information Systems researchers and technologists have built and investigated Decision Support Systems (DSS) for approximately 50 years. This paper chronicles and explores the developments in DSS beginning with building model-driven DSS in the late 1960s, theory developments in the 1970s, and the implementation of financial planning systems, spreadsheet DSS and Group DSS in the early and mid 80s. Data warehouses, Executive Information Systems, OLAP and Business Intelligence evolved in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Finally, the chronicle ends with knowledge-driven DSS and the implementation of Web-based DSS in the mid-1990s. Beginning in about 1980, many activities associated with building and studying

DSS occurred in universities and organizations that resulted in expanding the scope of DSS applications. These actions also expanded the field of decision support systems beyond the initial business and management application domain.

These diverse systems were all called Decision Support Systems. In those early days, it was recognized that DSS could be designed to support decision-makers at any level in an organization.

Also, DSS could support operations decision making, financial management and strategic decision-making.