Operations strategy and flexibility: modeling with Bayesian classifiers

Purpose – Information analysis tools enhance the possibilities of firm competition in terms of knowledge management. However, the generalization of decision support systems (DSS) is still far away from everyday use by managers and academicians. This paper aims to present a framework of analysis based on Bayesian networks (BN) whose accuracy is measured in order to assess scientific evidence. Design/methodology/approach – Different learning algorithms based on BN are applied to extract relevant information about the relationship between operations strategy and flexibility in a sample of engineering consulting firms. Feature selection algorithms automatically are able to improve the accuracy of these classifiers. Findings – Results show that the behaviors of the firms can be reduced to different rules that help in the decision‐making process about investments in technology and production resources. Originality/value – Contrasting with methods from the classic statistics, Bayesian classifiers are able to model a variety of relationships between the variables affecting the dependent variable. Contrasting with other methods from the artificial intelligence field, such as neural networks or support vector machines, Bayesian classifiers are white‐box models that can directly be interpreted. Together with feature selection techniques from the machine learning field, they are able to automatically learn a model that accurately fits the data.