Decision Support System for Establishment of Agro-Processing Enterprises ; Not Available

Abstract

In order to assess the feasibility of an agro-industrial enterprise (food, livestock and dairy), a potential investor must consider number of issues ranging from marketing strategies to technological, financial, and organizational concerns. The proper formulation and analysis becomes necessary for the success of any agro-industrial development programme. Decision Support System (DSS) can serve as an effective means to minimise difficulties associated with preparing and evaluating an investment project proposal. Software systems to support preparation and evaluation tasks, such as computer model for feasibility analysis and reporting (COMFAR); from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and others specifically developed by donors and financing institutes, are known to exist. However, none of these is distinctively designed to deal with the specific characteristics of agro-processing projects. In fact, the agro-processing industry operates under a set of special constraints primarily related to the biological nature of their raw materials. These are largely perishable, inconsistent in quality characteristics and seasonality based supply. Agro-industries also have a wide range of product mix alternatives, a feature that imposes unique challenges to production planning and control. Hence, in view of the importance of agro-processing projects, a decision support system (DSS) addressing the issues of project planning and evaluation has been an excellent alternative. Thus, the need was felt for development of DSS to provide a simple tool for initial feasibility assessments on agro-processing related projects for related entrepreneurs in the country. This paper discusses the concept and development of decision support system and illustrates its application. ; The decision support system (DSS) was developed to address the special characteristics of agro-processing related enterprise in the production catchment. A process flow diagram for a decision support system was developed to facilitate organizing the technical and economic information needed to assess financial feasibility to make business decisions easy. The system is an "information application". The typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would be comparative sales figures between one week and the next, projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions, the consequences of different decision alternatives and given past experience. The developed system is useful for State government bodies, village level workers, NGO's, SHGs, etc. who deal with information on post-harvest agro-processing activity and related technologies/projects. This paper basically focuses on concept and development of a Decision Support System on agro-processing project preparation and evaluation at production Catchments. ; Not Available