Companies can suffer numerous problems due to poor management of resources and careless decisions. In real-world decision-making, many organizations lack knowledge of decision technologies resulting in suboptimal decisions. These organizations can benefit from software tools to assist in their decision making. The Decision Support System is a tool to help support better decision making. The tool is intended for a variety of companies.

The objective of the Decision Support System is to provide well structured information and data from informally structured text containing relevant company information and data. We will develop the tool as a prototype which extracts useful, structured information from a plain text file containing numerical and text data regarding product sales, prices, and other data for several quarters.

General background• An interactive decision support system to assist decision makers • Assists in allocating resources with financial

and risks limitations• Able to construct fast and efficient decisions

accuratelyTechnical problem• Develop a Microsoft Visual Basic application

to create an interactive, computer-based system• Search text files to gather key words and phrases to determine pertinent data  Operating environment• Resultant software will be installed on Microsoft-Windows based computer with access to Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Visual Basic software. Intended users and uses• Designed specifically for the information support system group of a company • Identification needed to log into the system• Other company personnel may load text files

into the software or view unrestricted information Assumptions and limitations• Microsoft Windows-based operating systems• Users need basic knowledge of computer operations • Team members have minimal knowledge of

business economics

• The objective is to develop a software package that consists of economic, concept-based, modules to assist in business decision making. • The program should function to extract data

from input text files. It will be able to run economic functions on the data and output analysis. • Extensibility, security of data storage and operation, remote or local data storage, and programming proficiency of every team member are the major design constraints. • Completion of project plan, launching of the

team’s website, completion of the project poster, development, and implementation of the code are the major, measurable milestones.

The software program will enable a business to design and plan engineering systems using decision analysis. It will also gather data from various text files and store this information into a database. After the data is stored, decision analysis will be implemented such as curve fitting with regressions, optimization of production with the solver, and decision analysis.

• First technical approach is to have the program run independently on individual computers

• Each computer will have the program and database information stored on it • Program will be coded in Visual Basic, and the

information will be stored in an Excel spreadsheet• The second technical approach is having the

software program store and retrieve data from a central database• Each computer will have the program installed

on it and will be able to access the central database• Program will be implemented using Visual Basic and the information will be stored in an

Excel spreadsheet

• Will be tested to determine whether it can store information into a database

• Will be tested to determine if the right phrases and keywords are being identified

• Tests will then be conducted to check if the Excel functions are working properly and

generating the correct figures• Tests will also be set up to transfer information

from an email-based format to the database 

• Monetary: $50 for poster• Personnel Effort:Personnel - Estimated EffortHoang Van Pham - 115 HoursMei-Teng Lee - 130 HoursJoseph Richard Archer - 145 Hours Mei-Peng Cheong - 138 Hours

• 528 is the total effort hours estimated for two semesters

PROJECT CLIENTDr. Gerald Sheblé

FACULTY ADVISORSDr. Daniel BerleantDr. Gerald Sheblé

TEAM MEMBERSPham Hoang Van E E Joseph Richard Archer Cpr EMei-Peng Cheong Cpr EMei-Teng Lee Cpr E

Figure 1 An example user-interface window.

(Taken from www.marketplace-simulation.com)

Figure 2 An example of calculating total sales.

(Taken from www.marketplace-simulation.com)

Figure 3 An example of graphical representations of the data presented in Figure 2.

(Taken from www.marketplace-simulation.com)

(DECISION ANALYSIS SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT) MAY02-10

INTRODUCTION

DESIGN REQUIREMENTS

END-PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

TECHNICAL APPROACH

TESTING APPROACH

BUDGET