Tutorial
From Models to Decision Support Systems
by Ravi Ahuja
In their current IE/OR and business school curriculum, students acquire background in modeling, optimization, simulation, database, and programming, but there do not exist courses which teach students how to integrate these technologies learned in different courses to build decision models based information systems, also called decision support systems (DSS). A DSS uses the data residing in spreadsheets and/or databases, models it, processes or analyzes it using problem-specific methodologies, and assists the user in the decision-making process through a graphical user interface (GUI). Decision support systems are gaining widespread popularity in industry and knowing how to develop such systems will make our students active participants in the information revolution transforming our society. We are developing several courses that would teach our students how to develop spreadsheet-based or web-enabled decision support systems; in this tutorial we will share the contents of these courses and our experiences in offering these courses. The tutorial will give an overview of DSS and the need for DSS in the practice of operations research and operations management. We will illustrate using simple examples how to develop Excel VBA based and VB.Net based DSS, and demonstrate an extensive set of DSS case studies we have developed arising in forecasting, inventory, finance, location, sports, and medical applications. Finally, we will discuss how to integrate these courses in the existing course curriculums.
Ravindra K. Ahuja
Dr. Ahuja is a Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and also the President & CEO of Innovative Scheduling Systems, Inc. ( a company focused on developing cutting-edge optimization-based software for large-scale logistics problems. He is a coauthor of the book, “Network Flows: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications,” jointly with T.L. Magnanti (MIT) and J.B. Orlin (MIT). This book is now the leading text and reference book in the field of network optimization and won the prestigious Lanchester Prize in 1993, given annually to the best publication in operations research. He is now coauthoring two textbooks, entitled “Developing Spreadsheet-Based Decision Support Systems,” and “Developing Web-Enabled Decision Support Systems,” that would promote integration of information technology within the IE/OR and business school curriculum. He is also actively involved in the practice of operations research through the company, Innovative Scheduling Systems, he founded to develop state-of-the-art operations research based decision support systems for large logistics companies. This company is developing custom decision support systems for several Fortune 500 corporations. Dr. Ahuja publishes widely in prestigious journals and is an Associate Editor of the following journals: Operations Research, Transportation Science, and Networks.