A knowledge-based system for GIS software selection

Building a new GIS project is a major investment. Choosing the right GIS software package is critical to the success and failure of such investment. Because of the complexity of the problem a number of decision making tools must be deployed to arrive at the proper solution. In this study a new decision making approach for solving GIS software selection problem was proposed by integrating Expert Systems and Multi-Criteria Decision Making techniques. To implement the proposed decisionmaking approach, a prototype knowledge-based system was developed in which expert systems and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) are successfully integrated using the Component Object Model (COM) technology. A typical case study is also presented to demonstrate the application of the prototype system.