**Acknowledgements**

duction history, today's production, genetic background, health incidence, etc.) at the time the cow is being registered through a smart phone system whether the cow is in a corral, in the milking parlor, or out in the field grazing. This gives the farmer the opportunity to make critic a land time-sensitive decisions right away. This could be one of the major benefits of smart phones and tablets applications. Decision support systems have to be integrated with

One drawback, however, of smart phones and tablet applications is their restricted screen size and some hardware and software limitations. Applications need to be especially designed for smart phones and tablets. Normally, the information entered and retrieved would need to be summarized or would require additional layers of navigation. Extra design details could,

There is a trade-off of functionality and payback. The industry seems to favor both types: application for conventional computers and laptops in addition to those applications for smart phones and tablets. The decision-maker selects what type of tool to use for a particu‐ lar situation. From the developmental standpoint, this is an additional challenge that re‐

Important considerations regarding upcoming and developmental technologies are the in‐ creasing need for integration of DSS with information systems currently used in a farm. Most of the farmers are already using some type of software or information systems for op‐ erational management such as feeding, general record keeping, reproductive synchroniza‐ tion programs, identification, heat devices, or others. The DSS portrayed in this chapter and similar have the opportunity of becoming a bridge among these information systems. Deci‐ sion support systems can use live information from farm records and provide predictions that go beyond the simple record keeping summaries. Farmer expertise combined with realtime DSS projections using farm record keeping systems is a powerful combination for effi‐

More than 30 computerized decision support system tools have been developed to assist dairy farmers in their continuous decision-making needs. All these tools are openly avail‐ able at http://DairyMGT.info under the *Tools* section. Tools are grouped in major manage‐ ment areas of dairy farming such as feeding and nutrition, reproductive efficiency, heifer management and replacement, production and productivity, price risk management and financial assessment, and environmental stewardship. A number of methodologies and combinations of methodologies as well as different software applications were used to de‐ velop these decision support systems with the ultimate goal to always provide solid, but still user-friendly management tools for dairy practical farm decision-making. Methodolo‐ gies included partial budgeting, cost benefit, decision analysis, enterprise budgets, linear programming, Markov chains, mathematical simulation and projection, nonlinear optimi‐ zation, matrix solution, database management, and use of external simulation models. Software used to develop the tools included Macromedia Flash, HTML, PHP, JavaScript,

these new technologies and need to take advantage of these important advantages.

though, lead to more compact, more intuitive, and overall more efficient DSS.

cient and effective decision-making in dairy farm management.

quires additional work and expertise.

**7. Conclusion**

168 Decision Support Systems

The development and maintenance of the DairyMGT.info tools has been possible by the partial support of several extra-mural grants: Agriculture and Food Research Initiative from the US‐ DA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Competitive Grants No.: 2010-51300-20534, 2010-85122-20612, 2011-68004-30340 and several Hatch grants to V.E.C from the College of Ag‐ riculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Acknowledgement is ex‐ tended to a number of people involved at different levels in the development of these tools; Collaborators: B.W. Gould, R.D. Shaver, M.A. Wattiaux, L. Armentano, J. Vanderlin, K. Bolton; Students: J.O. Giordano, J. Janowski, M. Valvekar, E. Demarchi, A. Kalantari; Programmers: A. Kalantari, N. Suryanarayana, K. Nathella, V. Vats, A. Gola.
