KOSA - a decision support system for order control

The complexity of decision tasks concerning order control within the shop floor is very high especially in companies which produce to order. This leads to the design of central decision support systems that aim to optimize the whole order flow in advance. In spite of that development, structures seem to be more productive on the long run where staff nearer to the process can make their own production decisions and still consider company wide goals, rules and facts. The knowledge-based decision support system KOSA has been developed with emphasis on exception handling caused by breakdowns or oder changes within the shop floor. KOSA supports the shop floor staff in making scheduling decisions and assessments of additional costs arising from scheduling decisions to be made within the shop floor. It is specially designed to be integrated into an existing shop floor control environment and to be used by foremen. Improvement of work conditions is expected by enhancing the skills of shop floo r workers for decision making and using their experience as advice or by group decisions.