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244 part 3 • the analysis proCess

COnsUlting OppORtUnity 9.3

Saving a Cent on Citron Car Rental

“We feel lucky to be this popular. I think customers feel we account with us. There’s a discount for membership in any of
have so many options to offer that they ought to rent an auto from the frequent-flyer clubs run by cooperating airlines, too. When
us,” says Ricardo Limon, who manages several outlets for Citron customers step up to the counter, they tell us what size car they
Car Rental. “Our slogan is, ‘You’ll never feel squeezed at Citron.’ reserved, and then we check to see if we have it in the lot ready
We have five sizes of cars that we list as A through E: to go. They usually bring up any discounts, and we ask them if
they want insurance and how long they will use the car. Then
A Subcompact we calculate their rate and write out a slip for them to sign right
B Compact there.”
C Midsize Ricardo has asked you to computerize the billing process
D Full-size for Citron so that customers can get their cars quickly and still
E Luxury be billed correctly. Draw a decision table that represents the
conditions, condition alternatives, actions, and action rules
“Standard transmission is available only for A, B, and C. you gained from Ricardo’s narrative that will guide an auto-
Automatic transmission is available for all cars.” mated billing process.
“If a customer reserves a subcompact (A) and finds on arriv- Ricardo wants to expand the ecommerce portion of his
ing that we don’t have one, that customer gets a free upgrade to business by making it possible to reserve a car over the Web.
the next-sized car, in this case a compact (B). Customers also get Draw an updated decision table that shows a 10-percent dis-
a free upgrade from their reserved car size if their company has an count for booking a car over the Web.

6. Complete the table by inserting an X where rules suggest certain actions.
7. Combine rules where it is apparent that an alternative does not make a difference in the
outcome. For example,
Condition 1: YY
Condition 2: YN
Action 1: XX

can be expressed as:
Condition 1: Y
Condition 2: —
Action 1: X
The dash [—] signifies that Condition 2 can be either Y or N, and the action will still be taken.
8. Check the table for any impossible situations, contradictions, and redundancies. They are
discussed in more detail later.
9. Rearrange the conditions and actions (or even rules) if it makes the decision table more
understandable.

A DECISION TABLE EXAMPLE. Figure 9.9 is an illustration of a decision table developed using the
steps previously outlined. In this example, a company is trying to maintain a meaningful mailing
list of customers. The objective is to send out only the catalogs from which customers will buy
merchandise.
The managers realize that certain loyal customers order from every catalog and that some
people on the mailing list never order. These ordering patterns are easy to observe, but decid-
ing which catalogs to send customers who order only from selected catalogs is more difficult.
Once these decisions are made, a decision table is constructed for three conditions (C1: customer
ordered from Fall catalog; C2: customer ordered from Christmas catalog; and C3: customer
ordered from specialty catalog), each having two alternatives (Y or N). Three actions can be