EVOLUTION OF THE STRATEGY AND STRUCTURE OF A HUMAN-RESOURCE PLANNING DSS APPLICATION

A multi-year effort is described which resulted in the implementation of a series of human resource planning DSS applications in the U.S. Navy shipyard community. These applications span both corporate (integrated management of eight shipyards Navy-wide with 78,000 employees in 1986) and local (individual shipyards with 9,000 employees) perspectives. Many tough management and technical DSS implementation challenges were faced in the environment of the wide-scale reductions of the U.S. defense establishment. The paper first concentrates on the development, implementation and introduction of a DSS in a large organization that is going through a personnel downsizing process. Then, a discussion is provided of the implementation of complex human resource planning models in a DSS that can be used by a mid-level staff person. Methodological issues are discussed both in terms of the model and implementation technology.