Analysis and Synthesis of Decision-Making Organizations.
Abstract
The objective is to design distributed decision-making organizations. The synthesis problem is formulated as follows: Given a mission, design the decision-making organization that is accurate, timely, has task throughput rate higher than the task arrival rate, and whose decisionmakers are not overloaded. The fundamental feature of the methodology is the distinction between the design of the data flow structure and the design of the organization architecture. The data flow structure synthesis focuses on information processing schemata. A classification of these structures, suitable for decision-making, is introduced, and a procedure is developed for the generation of candidate structures. The organization architecture synthesis focuses on function allocation to decisionmakers, and on the selection of the supporting systems. The candidate designs are augmented by incorporating decision support systems and communication links. The performance and effectiveness of decision-making organizations is analyzed. An information theoretic model of the human decisionmaker with bounded rationality is used to model the information processing and decision-making functions. The formalism of timed Petri Nets is employed to model the interaction of processes, and to compute time related measures of performance. The concepts of Timeliness and Survivability are investigated, and the respective measures are defined. The accuracy, response time, and maximum throughput rate, are computed. A Measure of Effectiveness is evaluated for each design, and the organization with the greatest measure is selected.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1988
- Accession Number
- ADA191948
Entities
People
- Stamatios K. Andreadakis
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology