The structure of today's decision support environment become very complex due to new generation of Business Intelligence applications and technologies like Data Warehouse, OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) and Data Mining. In this respect DSS development process are not simple and needs an adequate methodology or framework able to manage different tools and platforms to achieve manager's requirements. The DSS development process must be view like a unified and iterative set of activities and operations. The new techniques based on Unified Process (UP) methodology and UML (Unified Modeling Language) it seems to be appropriate for DSS development using prototyping and RAD (Rapid Application Development) techniques. In this paper we present a conceptual framework for development and integrate Decision Support Systems using Unified Process Methodology and UML.Decision Support Systems, Unified Process, UML, Prototyping, DSS Tools

Claudiu BRANDAS

English

Research Papers in Economics

Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007 
 
98 
Unified Approach in the DSS Development Process 
 
Claudiu BRANDAŞ 
West University of Timişoara, Faculty of Economic Sciences 
 
The structure of today’s decision support environment become very complex due to new gen-
eration of Business Intelligence applications and technologies like Data Warehouse, OLAP 
(On Line Analytical Processing) and Data Mining. In this respect DSS development process 
are not simple and needs an adequate methodology or framework able to manage different 
tools and platforms to achieve manager’s requirements. The DSS development process must 
be view like a unified and iterative set of activities and operations. The new techniques based 
on Unified Process (UP) methodology and UML (Unified Modeling Language) it seems to be 
appropriate for DSS development using prototyping and RAD (Rapid Application Develop-
ment) techniques. In this paper we present a conceptual framework for development and inte-
grate Decision Support Systems using Unified Process Methodology and UML. 
Keywords: Decision Support Systems, Unified Process, UML, Prototyping, DSS Tools. 
 
ntroduction 
De
most
cision support systems are one of the 
 important concepts in the Management 
Information Systems field. DSS can be 
viewed as a third generation of computer-
based applications. First, mainframe com-
puters were used mostly for transactions 
processing [13]. Then, there was a growing 
realization that computers and information 
technology could be used for purposes other 
than automating paper work, for example, for 
management reporting, so the field of man-
agement information systems (MIS) was tak-
ing hold. Meanwhile, assistance for decision 
making was the domain of management sci-
entists and operations researchers who cre-
ated structured models, for which computers 
served primarily as computation engines. 
DSS was both an evolution and a departure 
from previous types of computer support for 
decision making. Management Information 
Systems (MIS) provided 1) scheduled reports 
for well-defined information needs, 2) de-
mand reports for ad hoc information requests, 
and 3) the ability to query a database for spe-
cific data. Operations Research/Management 
Science (OR/MS) employed mathematical 
models to better analyze and understand spe-
cific problems. Each was lacking some of the 
attributes needed to support decision making 
attributes such as focus, development meth-
odology, handling of managerial data, use of 
analytic aids, and dialog between user and 
system. 
The structure of today’s decision support en-
vironment become very complex due to new 
generation of Business Intelligence applica-
tions and technologies like Data Warehouse, 
OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) and 
Data Mining. These applications increase the 
organization’s business intelligence process 
in order to develop new perspectives of 
building and implementing Decision Support 
Systems.     
DSS developers must use and integrate vari-
ous technologies and tools if they want to 
cover decisional requirements based on busi-
ness intelligence process. In this respect DSS 
development process are not simple and 
needs an adequate methodology or frame-
work able to manage different tools and plat-
forms to achieve manager’s requirements. 
The classical approaches regarding to DSS 
development, such as SDLC (System Devel-
opment Life Cycle) are to rigid [8]. The re-
quirements in decisional process often 
change quite rapidly and the SDLC structure 
may force too much structure on end-user re-
quirements too early in the development 
process. A wide variety of schemes and 
frameworks attempt to classify DSS design 
and development tools. A common and easily 
generalizable classification scheme for DSS 
tools was proposed by Sprague and Carlson 
[12]. The development tools are classified 
I Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007 
  
99
according to three levels of technology: (1) 
DSS Tools, (2) DSS Generators, and (3) spe-
cific DSS applications. Sprague’s develop-
ment framework focused only on the tools 
that can be used for DSS construction.    
In the last years DSS developers use success-
fully the prototyping technique. This tech-
nique evolved in response to the deficiencies 
of the SDLC and appears to be an expedient 
and efficient method of “hitting the moving 
target” of DSS user requirements. Prototyp-
ing involves performing the analysis, design 
and implementation phases concurrently and 
repeatedly. System prototypes are quickly 
developed and presented to users. The use of 
prototyping in DSS development process 
needs an adequate methodology for systems 
analysis and modeling based on unified itera-
tive process. 
The integration of Decision Support Systems 
and Business Process will affect competitive 
advantages of firms. In order to develop De-
cision Support Systems, modeling of busi-
ness process is a fundamental work of system 
analysis and design. System dynamics is use-
ful to solve non-linear, complex, time delay 
and feedback problems of business proc-
esses. Recently, some technologies to model 
real world and to develop software systems 
have been presented, Object-Orientation, 
Function-Orientation, State-Orientation and 
Formal [9]. Object-Orientation is the most 
popular method which could make software 
product to be reusable, portable, and interop-
erability [11]. For enterprises, if they model 
business process by object method, they can 
adjust their system more flexibility. 
The DSS development process must be view 
like a unified and iterative set of activities 
and operations. The new techniques based on 
Unified Process (UP) methodology it seems 
to be appropriate for DSS development using 
prototyping and RAD (Rapid Application 
Development) techniques. Unified Process 
(UP) methodology known as Unified Soft-
ware Development Process (USDP) [7] is an 
industry standard in software engineering 
process. UP aims to build robust system ar-
chitecture incrementally.  
Modeling DSS architecture with UML (Uni-
fied Modeling Language) and using the UP 
as main methodology, DSS developers are 
able to construct and implement rapidly, ac-
curate and scalable DSS. The UP and UML 
offers appropriate activities and modeling 
language for developing modern DSS. 
 
DSS Development based on Unified Proc-
ess and UML  
The DSS development process must be view 
like a unified and iterative set of activities 
and operations. Researchers assert the need 
for new business paradigms to drive a unified 
approach to development of new active deci-
sion support capabilities [10]. Jacobson, 
Booch and Rumbaugh introduced in 1999 the 
Unified Software Development Process 
(USDP) as a software engineering process 
standard [7]. It is commonly referred to as 
the Unified Process or UP.  This methodol-
ogy consists of cycles that may repeat over 
the life of systems development. UP have 
three basic axioms [1]:  
• Use case and risk driven. UP employee 
Use Cases to capturing users requirements 
and predicating software construction on the 
analysis of risk. 
• Architecture centric. UP approach to de-
veloping software systems is to develop and 
evolve a robust system architecture. Archi-
tecture describes the strategic aspects of how 
the system is broken down into components, 
and how those components interact and de-
ployed on hardware. 
• Iterative and incremental. The iterative as-
pect of UP means that we break the project 
into small subprojects (the iterations) that de-
liver system functionality in chunks, or in-
crements, leading to a fully functional sys-
tem. 
There are several commercial variants of UP 
available. The most widely used commercial 
variant is RUP (Rational Unified Process). 
This product supplies all of the standards, 
tools, etc. that are not included in UP and that 
one would otherwise have to provide oneself. 
Both UP and RUP model the who, when and 
what of the software development process, 
but they do so very slightly differently.  Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007 
 
100 
UP have 4 main phases and one iteration 
workflows for each phase: 
• Inception 
• Elaboration 
• Construction 
• Transition 
• Iteration: Requirements – Analysis – De-
sign – Implementation - Test 
For modeling process and visual representa-
tion UP use UML (Unified Modeling Lan-
guage).  
DSS developed based on UP and UML can 
be easily implemented using Prototyping. 
The research of use UP in DSS development 
process is very poor. Most of the research 
papers refer only on use UML to modeling 
DSS process.      
Using UP as main methodology, UML for 
system modeling and Prototyping technique 
for implementation DSS, we have developed 
a conceptual framework.  
The DSS Unified Development Framework 
(DSS-UNIDEF) is an integrated set of meth-
odology, activities, operations, modeling lan-
guage, tools and technologies for conception, 
building and implementing decision support 
systems in a unified manner [3]. This is more 
a  conceptual framework than a software 
framework. This framework is based on Uni-
fied Process as methodology, UML as mod-
eling language and Prototyping, DSS Tools / 
DSS Generators as implementation tools and 
technique.  
We defined this conceptual framework to be 
an integrated environment for organizational 
and complex DSS development, not a soft-
ware framework. 
The DSS-UNIDEF can be structured in three 
layers (figure 1). 
 
 
Fig.1. DSS-UNIDEF main layers 
 
I.   Methodology. On the first layer is UP 
methodology. UP have four main phases and 
one iteration workflows for each phase: 
• Inception 
• Elaboration 
• Construction 
• Transition 
• Iteration: Requirements – Analysis –Design 
– Implementation – Test.  
 
II.   Modeling. On the Modeling layer is 
UML. UML is a graphical language that is 
suit-able to express software or system re-
quirements, architecture, and design. It can 
be used to communicate with other develop-
ers, project clients, and increasingly, with 
automated tools that generate parts of the 
system. UML has at least 13 official dia-
grams and several semiofficial diagrams. 
Diagrams are windows or views into the 
model. The diagram is not the model itself. 
UML diagrams (figure 2) can be divided into 
Structural diagram (systems structure) and 
Behavioral diagram (system behavior). 
 Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007 
  
101
 
Fig.2. UML diagrams 
 
III. Implementation. On the last layer are 
Prototyping technique, DSS Tools and DSS 
Generators.  
DSS development process using our frame-
work can be structured in four main phases 
according with UP methodology. In every 
phase are used UML models to describe 
DSS. In table 1 we present the DSS-UNIDEF 
process. 
 
Table 1 DSS-UNIDEF Process. 
Unified Process  DSS Modeling workflows  UML Models  Deliverables 
Inception  • Identify the needs for DSS develop-
ment 
• Identify business risks 
Initial Use Case 
Model of DSS 
• DSS Project Plan 
• Initial DSS Use Case Model 
• Risks Assessment Document 
• DSS Throwaway Prototype 
Elaboration  • Decision Process Analysis and Mod-
eling (Functional Requirements; In-
terface requirements; Coordination 
Requirements) 
• Decision Makers Profiles Modeling 
• DSS Design (Reports, Models, Data-
base, Knowledgebase, Interface) 
• DSS Architecture Modeling 
• Static Model  
• Dynamic 
Model 
• Use Case 
Model 
• DSS Meta-model / Model 
• DSS executable architectural 
baseline 
Construction  • DSS Programming/Design (DSS 
Tools, DSS Generators) 
• Develop users manual 
• DSS Testing 
DSS Architec-
ture Model 
DSS Software product (beta test-
ing) 
Transition  DSS installation/ integration  Deployment 
Model 
Final DSS Software product 
 
Conclusions 
Current frameworks and methodologies for 
DSS Development must be able to integrate 
Business Process with new DSS applications 
like Business Intelligence technologies. In 
this respect DSS developers must have a uni-
fied view of DSS building and implementa-
tion. From our opinion UP, UML, Prototyp-
ing and DSS Tools / DSS Generators are the 
most recommended for current DSS devel-
opment and implementation.  
DSS models elaborated with UML can be 
rapid integrated with other business functions 
in the new MDA (Model-Driven Architec-
ture). With UML, DSS developers can de-
velop complex decision models and data-
bases (Data warehouse, OLAP and Data 
Mining Applications). In the same time UML 
offer a high level of component reusability.  
Our conceptual framework DSS-UNIDEF 
can be a basic foundation for development 
flexible, accurate and reusable DSS. Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007 
 
102 
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Attempt to Integrate System Dynamics and UML

Building Effective Decision Support Systems,

Conceptual Framework for DSS Development based on UP and UML, Annals of the Tiberiu Popoviciu Seminar of Functional Equations, Approximation and Convexity, Mediamira Science Publisher,

Unified Approach in the DSS Development Process

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