Abstract
Decision support systems are nowadays used to disentangle all kinds of intricate situations and perform sophisticated analysis. Moreover, they are applied in areas where the knowledge can be heterogeneous, partially un-formalized, implicit, or diffuse. The representation and management of this knowledge becomes the key point to ensure the proper functioning of the system and to keep an intuitive view upon its expected behavior. This paper presents a generic architecture for implementing knowledge-base systems used in collaborative businesses, where the knowledge is organized into different databases, according to the usage, persistence, and quality of the information. This approach is illustrated with Cadral, a customizable automated tool built on this architecture and used for processing family benefits applications at the National Family Benefits Fund of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg.
