Decision support systems in the design of process control systems

The dramatic increase in the availability of computers has removed them from their pedestal, to their proper place as very powerful and sophisticated tools, but still tools that serve humans. This has motivated a rapid growth of research on applications of decision support systems-computerized systems of processing information, knowledge and models that help in the preparation of decisions made by humans. An automatic control system is built in order to relieve humans from tedious and repetitive decisions while the construction of such a system requires other, more complex human decisions that cannot be fully automated but can be helped by decision support.