COPP: A Decision Support System for managing customer enquiries

The management of customer enquiries is a particularly pertinent issue for make-to-order companies in which each enquiry concerns a unique order. Such companies must make tenders which are both competitive and realistic in terms of characteristics such as the delivery date and price, if they are to win the order and to secure future orders. Often, the need to ensure that a tender is realistic is given a low priority and thus orders that are won are delivered late and/or made at a loss. This paper proposes a Decision Support System which assists in determining tenders which are both realistic and competitive. Input/output control is used so that the input in terms of orders is controlled at the same time as the output is controlled in terms of capacity.