A DSS model for a school of engineering

Although it may be questioned whether Operational Research OR has failed to make a significant impact on decision processes at the top of the management hierarchy, the author believes it can be appropriate for decision making within subunits of the organization. One such example is the application of Operational Research OR methodologies to the strategic planning process of a school of engineering. The fact that the university is a service organization with inherently fuzzy data leading to frequently non-quantifiable objectives exacerbated the problem with using typical quantitative Operational Research OR techniques. An approach was developed that structured the objectives into a hierarchy of mission, goals, objectives, strategies, and actions, all of which could be relatively weighted through input of knowledgeable middle managers within the school. Constraints were incorporated into a 0-1 integer programming model that attempted to maximize the importance for initiation of each action as its importance varied over time.