Treffer: An Expert System for Reward Systems Design

Today's business environment is a highly competitive marketplace. In this competition, organizations distribute numerous rewards to motivate, attract and retain employees, such as pay, fringe benefits and promotions. However, not all managers have the necessary knowledge and expertise to effectively decide and structure reward systems. This thesis presents an expert system to assist managers with designing the most appropriate reward system in their organizations. The system queries the user about the organization's goals, structure, culture, technology and its management's vision. This information is then filtered through decision matrixes in the knowledge base to generate the results along with an explanation and an estimated accuracy factor. The system was designed and programmed using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0. The decision tables in the knowledge base were designed and structured using a Microsoft Access database. The results show that similar knowledge base expert systems could be designed and programmed to assist managers for other uses in organizations.