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Decision Support Systems

In addition to the CPM, GANTT, NETDRAW, and PM procedures, which are the major tools for the traditional functions associated with project management, SAS/OR software has several procedures that can be used to create a many-faceted Decision Support System. Traditional CPM/PERT techniques form only one part of effective project management and may be considered as a specialized application of Decision Support Systems (Williams and Boyd 1990). SAS/OR software contains several mathematical programming procedures that can be used to design effective systems for solving inventory control, transportation, network flow, transshipment, product-mix, cutting stock problems, and so on. These procedures are discussed in detail in the SAS/OR User's Guide: Mathematical Programming.

Decision analysis is another important tool that is receiving recognition as a component of project management. The next section briefly describes PROC DTREE and the role it can play in making important decisions in project management.