The effect of previous experience when introducing a decision aid in a decision support system for supply chain management

Decision Support Systems (DSSs) in the domain of Industrial Engineering and Management can be very powerful tools, but more knowledge about the way users utilize these systems is required. In the current research, we evaluated the effect of previous experience with a task on users’ willingness to accept a suggested decision aid and their performance in a supply chain management system. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three between-participants groups: the No Aid Group, which did not receive any decision aid during the interaction; the Aid Group, which was offered an algorithm, at the beginning of the first session, to help members improve their decisions; and the Mid-term Aid Group, which received, at the beginning of the second session, the same algorithm that was offered to the Aid Group. Participants were tested separately. The results demonstrated that in the second session, the performance of the Aid Group was significantly better in comparison with the No Aid Group. The Mid-term Aid Group’s performance did not show any gain, although both the Aid and Mid-term Aid Groups made similar use of the aid in this session. We concluded that in a DSS, having previous experience with the task before introducing the decision aid compared to having previous experience with the task and with the decision aid is not recommended.