A decision support system dedicated to discrete multiple criteria problems

In most real world contexts, decisions must be made in presence of multiple, conflicting, incommensurate criteria. This paper presents a computational tool aimed at providing decision aid in the evaluation of a finite and explicitly known set of alternatives over several criteria. The system has been designed as an experimentation framework for helping analysts in the practice of decision aid, and it can be customized to specific decision situations. This decision support system (DSS) consists of a problem editor, a problem compiler, a set of multiple criteria decision aid (MCDA) methods, a dialogue base and a data management module. The DSS intends to make the most of a user-friendly computer interface in order to minimize the cognitive effort required from decision makers (DMs). The set of methods includes some representative discrete alternative MCDA methods, underlying different philosophies and strategies for selecting, clustering or ranking the alternatives. Some features of this DSS will be illustrated by considering a case study of evaluation of alternative power generation expansion policies.