Fuzzy decision support system for evaluation and prioritisation of critical success factors for the development of agricultural DSS

Abstract

Overwhelmingly, surveys of agricultural DSSs (agDSSs) have revealed a general lack of support which could influence actual practice. Reasons behind DSS rejection were multiple. Accordingly, various strategies and approaches were proposed for their uptake. But developers often use their own criteria, priorities, and strategies during various developmental phases, mainly due to complex and vague nature of interactions between multiple factors describing DSS vis-a-vis, non-availability of critical success factors and their characterisation. Multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods are widely used under these circumstances to facilitate systematic and lucid decision support, chalk out multiple decision outcomes and equip decision maker with confident decision choices to lead the process to its coherent ending. This research proposes a fuzzy decision support system to evaluate and prioritise critical success factors for the development of agricultural DSSs and provides an estimate of weightings, which measure the relative importance of these factors under generic multi-criteria settings. The results envisage that the proposed system supplements agDSS developers with more precise key decision support information.