Decision making requirements and solutions are observed in four world class Manufacturing Enterprises (MEs). Observations made focus on deployed methods of complexity handling that facilitate multi-purpose, distributed decision making. Also observed are examples of partially deficient “integrated decision making” which stem from lack of understanding about how ME structural relations enable and/or constrain reachable ME behaviours. To begin to address this deficiency the paper outlines the use of a “reference model of ME decision making” which can inform the structural design of decision making systems in MEs. Also outlined is a “systematic model driven approach to modelling ME systems” which can particularise the reference model in specific case enterprises and thereby can “underpin integrated ME decision making”. Coherent decomposition and representational mechanisms have been incorporated into the model driven approach to systemise complexity handling. The paper also describes in outline an application of the modelling method in a case study ME and explains how its use has improved the integration of previously distinct planning functions. The modelling approach is particularly innovative in respect to the way it structures the coherent creation and experimental re-use of “fit for purpose” discrete event (predictive) simulation models at the multiple levels of abstraction. 1. Decision Making Concepts and Frameworks and Their Relevance to MEs Seminal studies of decision making and problem solving by Simon [1] have been widely referenced. Notable among these commentaries are reviews by Augier [2] and Karni [3] that report Simon as saying that “the work of managers, of scientists, of engineers, of lawyers—the work that steers the course of society and its economic and governmental organizations—is largely work of making decisions and solving problems. It is work of choosing issues that require attention, setting goals, finding or designing suitable courses of action, and evaluating and choosing among alternative actions. The first three of these activities Simon called problem solving; the last he referred to as decision making. Nothing is more important for the well-being of society, such as at the level of business organizations (product improvement, efficiency of production, choice of investments), and at the level of our individual lives (choosing a career or a school).” The abilities and skills that determine the quality of our decisions and problem solutions are stored not only in more than multimillion human heads, but also in tools and machines,
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