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OR/MS Today, December 2006
Decision Analysis Software Survey
The information in this survey was provided by the vendors in response to a questionnaire developed by the OR/MS Today staff. The survey should not be considered as comprehensive, but rather as a representation of available Decision Analysis packages.
If you know of a Decision Analysis package that is not in the survey, please contact Patton McGinley at (770) 431-0867, ext. 214 or e-mail patton@lionhrtpub.com. It will be included in the online version.
UPDATES:
1/23/08 — added DecideIT From Preference AB
7/24/07 — added Doctus KBS From Doctus
1/15/07 — added ForeTell-DSS from DecisionPath, Inc.
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Be sure to read the accompanying article by Daniel T. Maxwell, Improving Hard Decisions.
The survey is divided into eleven separate tables and a vendor list. Following is an index of the pages and the information they contain:
Page 1
Vendors
Operating Systems: Windows, Mac OS, Unix, specify flavors of Unix
Page 2
Applications: Trade-offs among multiple objectives, Representation / analysis of uncertainty, Representation / analysis of probabilistic dependencies, Risk aversion, Sequential decision making, Portfolio decision making, Multiple stakeholders, All of the above in one model
Page 3
User Capabilities: Interfaces to other software: Import (database, spreadsheet), Export (presentation graphics), XML; Can model segments be copied?; Can model segments be moved easily?
Page 4
User Capabilities (continued): Can model structure be displayed on screen?; Can model structure be printed?; Can user protect data from other users?; Does the software support explicitly group elicitation?; If yes, will it support decentralized elicitation?
Page 5
User Capabilities (continued): Will it support simultaneous data input?; Does it support simultaneous viewing?; Is a record of model evolution kept?
Page 6
Pricing Information: Commercial, Education, Enhanced/High Performance
Estimated number of users
Page 7
Presence of hard wired constraints: Number of alternatives?, Number of levels in value or decision tree?, Number of states of a node in a tree?
Page 8
Availability of graphical elicitation techniques: Model structure / Brainstorming, Value functions / scores, Value weights, Probabilities, Risk preference
Page 9
Availability of graphical elicitation techniques (continued): Can probabilities or weights be defined as variables that can be operated on?, Are graphical sensitivity analyses possible on either weights or probabilities?, Can analytical results be portrayed graphically?, Can the user document structure or judgments with text?
Page 10
New features since October 2004
Targeted industries or market segments
Page 11
Specific applications for which software is most widely used?
Comments
Vendor List
Vendor Contact Information
The survey appeared in the December 2006 issue of OR/MS Today. To order a copy of this issue, contact Customer Service at 770-431-0867, ext. 224 or send e-mail to:
csr@lionhrtpub.com.
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