Agent and data mining based decision support system and its adaptation to a new customer-centric electronic commerce

Recently, as the Internet has become more widely used, Electronic Commerce (EC) has emerged and has developed a high-level business environment. The customer-centric EC model is important for the success of EC and this study presents a new customer-centric EC model in make-to-order (MTO) semiconductor manufacturing environment. In this study we proposed the EC model providing the process transparency of process sampling method that can provide online semiconductor customers with the performance information of available process sampling methods which can be used at all manufacturing process steps for their own products in MTO manufacturing environment, and then the capability to select a desirable one among them based on their purchase situations on EC web site. In the proposed EC model the customer can select a process sampling method that is most suitable to him/her according to the customer’s purchase situation. In this model the use of intelligent decision support system called customized sampling decision support system (CSDSS) that can autonomously generate available customized sampling methods and provide the performance information of those methods to EC system is requisite. We implemented an Internet-based prototype of CSDSS which had an architecture based on intelligent agent technology and also the successful integration of data mining process for the generation of optimal sampling method into DSS framework by means of applying that technology. q 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.