A Program for the Design of Procurement Systems.
Abstract
Computer technology has had limited success in producing useful business applications. Management systems seldom meet user's requirements, are often inappropriate to an application, and are frequently abandoned. But why. Business lacks expertise in the application of computers. Managers who are expert in solving business problems find it difficult to specify formal procedures for the solution of these problems. It is not surprising that programmers who work form poorly defined specifications produce poorly written software. The computer industry has provided only limited support in business applications. Application packages are seldom appropriate to a problem and are often misapplied. Misapplication is the principle reason for their failure in practical situations. PROCTOR is implemented as an 'unstructured' questionnaire. It guides the user in investigating various aspects of a problem while giving him complete freedom in deciding how and when to supply answers to questions. It allows him to change and skip answers whenever he desires. PROCTOR is implemented in OWL, a system for representing and processing conceptual knowledge. It uses the OWL data base to represent procedures for the questionnaire and to store data accumulated during the interaction. This representation makes possible the presentation of an English-like problem description, various evaluations and the reasons for the evaluations. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA026688
Entities
People
- Michael Bosyj
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology