The Development of Web-Oriented Decision Support System for Supporting a Single-Level Task Assignment Process

Abstract

Selecting subordinates for assigning tasks is considered an important process of human resource management and can be found generally in all workplaces. The task assignment must be done based on the concept of “putting the right man on the right job” so that the subordinates who are selected can perform the task to their full potential. This, finally, reflects an effective operation and highly productive results. This research aims to 1) study the process involved and find general criteria that the supervisors use for selecting subordinates for a certain task, 2) develop a Decision Support System (DSS) prototype used for supporting the single-level task assignment, and 3) evaluate the users’ opinions on the system prototype. The research was divided into four phases which were 1) asking opinions of three domain experts about the process and the criteria that supervisors used for selecting subordinates for a task 2) analyzing and designing a DSS prototype in order to identify the system scope and the structure of system components 3) constructing a DSS prototype 4) testing and evaluating the DSS prototype with groups of users from five supportive organizations (specifically six supervisors and 31 operative subordinates). After the system testing, focus group interviews were conducted in order to get users’ opinions in the areas of the Input Model, the Output Model, and the Process Model of the system. The result shows that the DSS prototype can present practical criteria consistent with employee selection in a real situation. Moreover, the system effectively supports a single-level task assignment process, and also makes the operation of recording, accessing and retrieving the data of the task and the operating employees more systematic, convenient, and reliable.