An asynchronous group decision support system study for intelligent multicriteria decision making

In modern business world group decision-making is becoming an extremely important activity. Recent research on computerized group decision support has focused extensively on supporting people co-located in place and time. There is a need however, for more research focused on asynchronous group decision support systems (GDSS). Multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) theory has produced a wide range of techniques suitable for use in a variety of decision situations. With the support of an asynchronous GDSS which intelligently guides decision makers using an appropriate MCDM technique for a given task, the opportunity exists to explore the improvement of decision-making processes. In this paper we propose an intelligent MCDM process model assisted by an asynchronous GDSS. The paper describes a research project, which focuses on the development of an asynchronous GDSS to support MCDM processes in Lotus Notes(R) environment. The system also contains an intelligent component, which can guide users to select a suitable MCDM model for different problems and tasks. A system development research method is adopted in our study.