The goal of the OMA project is to establish new technology for knowledge-based optimization analysis that will address a host of decision making environments. This has been a traditional shortcoming of optimization modeling--the difficulty of generating optimization models across different environments. KBSI demonstrated the utility of the IDEF5 ontology capture method for developing knowledge-based support for optimization model design and the effectiveness of the IDEF3 Process Description Capture Method in the automatic development of optimization models. KBSI's approach applies knowledge based systems techniques to automating the optimization model design process, enabling the automatic design of an optimization model from a manager's description of a problem or a question.

The OMA project is establishing technology that will result in the increased use of optimization modeling to solve manufacturing, operational planning, and logistics and business reengineering problems. OMA provides a suite of powerful decision support paradigms that enable the modeling of any decision making environment in terms of the desired objectives, the various decisions that potentially influence the objective, and a set of constraints that bind the decisions.