A Bayesian network framework for project cost, benefit and risk analysis with an agricultural development case study

Successful implementation of major projects requires careful management of uncertainty and risk. Yet such uncertainty is rarely effectively calculated when analysing project costs and benefits. This paper presents a Bayesian Network (BN) modelling framework to calculate the costs, benefits, and return on investment of a project over a specified time period, allowing for changing circumstances and trade-offs. The framework uses hybrid and dynamic BNs containing both discrete and continuous variables over multiple time stages. The BN framework calculates costs and benefits based on multiple causal factors including the effects of individual risk factors, budget deficits, and time value discounting, taking account of the parameter uncertainty of all continuous variables. The framework can serve as the basis for various project management assessments and is illustrated using a case study of an agricultural development project

Modelling of Risk Management for Product Development of Yogurt Drink Using House of Risk (HOR) Method

. Product Development is essential for the company to stay steady or advance in the market competition. However, the main challenge in product development is associated with the uncertaincy risks that may appeared during the design process. Such risks may affect the success rate of the product development and may contribute either to a small or a huge loss, in which the sustainability of the company can also be affected. To mitigate the risks in product development, risk management is critical. CV. XYZ is a company producing dairy-based products such as mozzarella cheese and yogurt. This research is aimed to identify the potential appeared risks, to arrange the priority order of risk agents and to conceptualize the risk mitigation strategy to be applied. A Yogurt drink product development is needed by CV. XYZ to support the company goals of the product and market expansion. House of Risk (HOR) method was used in this research. Two phases included in the identification process, namely marketing and product development design. The research results have examined 20 risks with 27 identified risk agents. Using the Aggregate Risk Potential (ARP) value, and Pareto 80:20 principal, this study provides a strategic guideline as how to mitigate the top-three identified risk agents

Building GIS Platforms for Spatial Business: A Focus on the Science of Maximizing Location Intelligence Benefits Through Risk/Cost Management

An ensemble model for aggregating weighted risks and costs is tested in a Monte Carlo simulation with Tomlinson's 22 lower-order risk factors for GIS implementations. The basic assumption of the model is that practitioners incorrectly manipulate and transpose risk and cost factors contributing to less than optimum implementation results. Such examples include: (1) violation of Lusser's probability product law, (2) non-use of Galton's 50th percentile/median as the "wisdom of the crowd" estimate, (3) incorrect use of weighting (if at all), (4) dubious ranking of lower-order risk factor importance and (5) the inability to automatically predict a Bayesian posterior adjusted cost projection. The ensemble model corrects for these and other errors. Life data analysis and reliability functions from reliability engineering are built into the model for further enhancement of results

Valuing Ecosystem Services in Semi-arid Rangelands through Stochastic Simulation

Ecosystem services and economic returns from semi-arid rangelands are threatened by land degradation. Policies to improve ecosystem service delivery often fail to consider uncertainty in economic returns gained through different land uses and management practices. We apply an analytical framework using stochastic simulation to estimate the range of potential monetary outcomes of rangeland ecosystem services under different land uses, including consideration of the uncertainty and variability of model parameters. We assess monetary and non-monetary dimensions, including those ecosystem services with uncertain and missing information, for communal rangelands, commercial ranches, game farms and Wildlife Management Areas in southern Kgalagadi District, Botswana. Public land uses (communal grazing areas and protected conservation land in Wildlife Management Areas) provide higher economic value than private land uses (commercial ranches and game farms), despite private land uses being more profitable in their returns from meat production. Communal rangelands and protected areas are important for a broader range of ecosystem services (cultural/spiritual services, recreation, firewood, construction material and wild food), which play a key role in sustaining the livelihoods of the largest share of society. The full range of ecosystem services should therefore be considered in economic assessments, while policies targeting sustainable land management should value and support their provision and utilisation. By forecasting the range of plausible ecosystem values of different rangeland land uses in monetary terms, our analysis provides policymakers with a tool to assess outcomes of land use and management decisions and policies

MULTI-CRITERIA ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURE IN A RURAL SPACE. CASE STUDY: ARGEȘ COUNTY

This analysis has the intention to highlight the territorial differentiation of the agricultural development's vulnerabilities in the agricultural areas from Argeș County. Thereby a determinant and eliminatory factor in agriculture is given by the average slopes greater than 20% and altitudes greater than 700 m. By consequences, 16 villages have been excluded. The study has emphasized an increasing of territorial vulnerabilities, which tend to intensify in the rural areas. The analysis of the agricultural development's growth is based on four main criteria: the use of agricultural land; the fragmentation of agricultural land; the viability of agricultural companies and the types of agricultural exploitation. Therefore, through the variety of the indicators that have been used, the analysis offers an image of the spatial layout of the agricultural development in the 95 settlements under discussion. Moreover, the degree of development for an industrial branch is observed through this problem, so common in the emerging economies

"Reverse engineering" research portfolio synergies and tradeoffs from domain expertise in minimum data contexts

In research portfolio planning contexts, an estimate of research policy and project synergies/tradeoffs (i.e. covariances) is essential to the optimal leveraging of institution resources. The data by which to make such estimates generally do not exist. Research institutions may often draw on domain expertise to fill this gap, but it is not clear how such ad hoc information can be quantified and fed into an optimal resource allocation workflow. Drawing on principal components analysis, I propose a method for “reverse engineering” synergies/tradeoffs from domain expertise at both the policy and project level. I discuss extensions to other problems and detail how the method can be fed into a research portfolio optimization workflow. I also briefly discuss the relevance of the proposed method in the context of the currently toxic relations between research communities and the donors that fund them

Técnicas para análise de risco: uma avaliação da literatura sobre gerenciamento de projetos de SI

Este artigo trata de técnicas de gerenciamento de risco em projetos de sistemas de informação (SI). Dentro desse contexto, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo identificar as técnicas descritas na literatura para o gerenciamento de riscos em projetos de SI. A fundamentação teórica da pesquisa foi baseada na literatura sobre gerenciamento de projetos consultada nas bases de dados da Scopus, IEEE e Science Direct. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, que contou com uma amostra inicial de 227 artigos, dos quais foram extraídos 25. Os dados foram coletados no primeiro semestre de 2017 e entre os resultados obtidos destacam-se: 1) técnicas usadas para entrada de dados em projetos de SI seguem aquelas utilizadas em projetos de outras áreas; 2) nas técnicas usadas para tratamento de dados se destacam as que utilizam a técnica Fuzzy, sendo que simulações e técnicas baseadas primordialmente em probabilidade são pouco usadas; e 3) as técnicas para apresentação de dados utilizam principalmente listas de priorização

Desempenho dos indicadores de liquidez das maiores cooperativas agroindustriais brasileiras entre 2011 e 2015

The objective of this study is to present and analyze the liquidity indicators of the largest national agroindustrial production cooperatives, such as: liquidity ratio, current liquidity and quick liquidity between the years 2011 and 2015. To that end, eight cooperatives were analyzed from the list of the 15 largest agroindustrial organizations classified by net sales in the Ranking Value 1000 for the year 2016. The results allow to conclude that the national agribusiness cooperatives have, according to the indicators studied, a good capacity to pay their short and long-term debt. In addition, in some cases, cooperatives have been able to reverse the deterioration of some indicators, which may be the result of efficient financial management. It is worth mentioning and suggesting attention to the behavior of the next years, given the constant deterioration of the indexes in most cooperatives, except for the excellent performance of Lar, which presented evolution in all observed indicatorsEste estudo tem como objetivo apresentar e analisar os indicadores de liquidez das maiores cooperativas nacionais de produção agroindustrial, sendo estes: liquidez geral, liquidez corrente e liquidez seca, entre os anos de 2011 e 2015. Para tal, oito cooperativas foram analisadas a partir da lista das quinze maiores organizações agroindustriais classificadas por faturamento líquido no Ranking Valor 1000 para o ano de 2016. Os resultados permitem concluir que as cooperativas agroindustriais nacionais têm, segundo os indicadores estudados, boa capacidade para pagarem suas dívidas de curto e longo prazo. Além disso, em alguns casos as cooperativas souberam reverter o quadro de deterioração de alguns indicadores, o que pode ser o resultado de uma gestão financeira eficiente. Cabe colocar e sugerir atenção ao comportamento dos próximos anos, visto a deterioração constante dos índices na maioria das cooperativas, com exceção do ótimo desempenho da Lar, a qual apresentou evolução em todos os indicadores observados

Assessing the Performance of Agricultural Development Investments A Practical Guide using the SIPmath™ Standard

The global community must make significant investments to address climate change and build resilience in agricultural systems. Within climate-smart agriculture investment portfolios, all sizable projects face uncertainty and risk and must be adaptively managed to achieve success.[1]–[4]. This paper presents notes for calibrating a user-friendly tool to screen and compare investment options: The Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan (CSAIP) Cost Benefit-Analysis (CBA) Tool. The CSAIP-CBA models a 20-year period following investment implementation and uses a probabilistic approach to account for uncertainty in project costs and benefits subject to risks and adoption barriers. The model includes measures for number of beneficiaries, adoption rates, estimated impacts, and budget and costs while also considering risks and GHG emissions. Implementation examples of the CSAIP-CBA tool are drawn from investment portfolios prepared for Ghana and Burkina Faso; these suggest that carbon pricing and adoption rate assumptions should be considered when prioritizing investments