An application of multiattribute decision analysis to the Space Station Freedom program. Case study: Automation and robotics technology evaluation

The results are described of an application of multiattribute analysis to the evaluation of high leverage prototyping technologies in the automation and robotics (A and R) areas that might contribute to the Space Station (SS) Freedom baseline design. An implication is that high leverage prototyping is beneficial to the SS Freedom Program as a means for transferring technology from the advanced development program to the baseline program. The process also highlights the tradeoffs to be made between subsidizing high value, low risk technology development versus high value, high risk technology developments. Twenty one A and R Technology tasks spanning a diverse array of technical concepts were evaluated using multiattribute decision analysis. Because of large uncertainties associated with characterizing the technologies, the methodology was modified to incorporate uncertainty. Eight attributes affected the rankings: initial cost, operation cost, crew productivity, safety, resource requirements, growth potential, and spinoff potential. The four attributes of initial cost, operations cost, crew productivity, and safety affected the rankings the most

Multi crteria decision making and its applications : a literature review

This paper presents current techniques used in Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and their applications. Two basic approaches for MCDM, namely Artificial Intelligence MCDM (AIMCDM) and Classical MCDM (CMCDM) are discussed and investigated. Recent articles from international journals related to MCDM are collected and analyzed to find which approach is more common than the other in MCDM. Also, which area these techniques are applied to. Those articles are appearing in journals for the year 2008 only. This paper provides evidence that currently, both AIMCDM and CMCDM are equally common in MCDM

Eliciting preferences on multiattribute societies with a Choquet integral

This paper aims at reexamining the construction of indicators of standards of living, by focussing on the challenges raised by the subjectivity and the multidimensionality of living conditions. For that purpose, we propose to apply Choquet integral-based multiattribute value theory to the elicitation, from rankings of multiattribute hypothetical societies, of individual's preferences on different dimensions of living conditions. A simple application of the proposed approach highlights the existence of complementarities and redundancies between different dimensions of standards of living, and reveals a strong heterogeneity of individual preferences on hypothetical societies. We explore also how elicited preferences can be used to cast a new light on the ranking of actual multiattribute societies.Ce papier a pour but de réexaminer la construction d'indicateurs de conditions de vie, en mettant une emphase particulière sur les défis posés par la subjectivité et la multidimensionnalité des conditions de vie. A cette fin, nous proposons d'appliquer la théorie de l'utilité multi-attributs (MAUT) basée sur l'intégrale de Choquet à l'élicitation, à partir des classements de sociétés hypothétiques multidimensionnelles, des préférences individuelles sur les diverses dimensions des conditions de vie. Une application simple de l'approche proposée met en évidence l'existence de complémentarités et de redondances entre les diverses dimensions des conditions de vie et révèle une forte hétérogénéité des préférences sur les sociétés hypothétiques. Nous explorons également comment les préférences ainsi élicitées peuvent ensuite être utilisées afin d'apporter une lumière nouvelle sur le classement des sociétés actuelles multidimensionnelles

Aircraft Combat Survivability Calculation Based on Combination Weighting and Multiattribute Intelligent Grey Target Decision Model

Aircraft combat survivability is defined as the capability of an aircraft to avoid or withstand a man-made hostile environment, which has been increasingly important. In order to give a rational calculation of aircraft combat survivability, an integrated method based on combination weighting and multiattribute intelligent grey target decision model is proposed. Firstly, an evaluation index system containing susceptibility index and vulnerability index as well as their subindexes is established. Then a multiattribute intelligent grey target decision model is introduced. A combination weighting method is brought up based on a modified AHP (analytic hierarchy process) method and the entropy method, offering a rational weight for various indexes. Finally, utilize the multiattribute intelligent grey target decision model to assess the aircraft combat survivability of aircraft, verified by a practical case of five aircraft. The results show that the proposed method is effective and has a great value in engineering application, which will provide useful references for other projects’ evaluation

Open source environment to define constraints in route planning for GIS-T

Route planning for transportation systems is strongly related to shortest path algorithms, an optimization problem extensively studied in the literature. To find the shortest path in a network one usually assigns weights to each branch to represent the difficulty of taking such branch. The weights construct a linear preference function ordering the variety of alternatives from the most to the least attractive.Postprint (published version

An approach to multiattribute decision making with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy assessments and incomplete weights

This article proposes an approach to multiattribute decision making with incomplete attribute weight information where individual assessments are provided as interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IVIFNs). By employing a series of optimization models, the proposed approach derives a linear program for determining attribute weights. The weights are subsequently used to synthesize individual IVIFN assessments into an aggregated IVIFN value for each alternative. In order to rank alternatives based on their aggregated IVIFN values, a novel method is developed for comparing two IVIFNs by introducing two new functions: the membership uncertainty index and the hesitation uncertainty index. An illustrative investment decision problem is employed to demonstrate how to apply the proposed procedure and comparative studies are conducted to show its overall consistency with existing approaches

Multiattribute electronic procurement using goal programming

One of the key challenges of current day electronic procurement systems is to enable procurement decisions transcend beyond a single attribute such as cost. Consequently, multiattribute procurement have emerged as an important research direction. In this paper, we develop a multiattribute e-procurement system for procuring large volume of a single item. Our system is motivated by an industrial procurement scenario for procuring raw material. The procurement scenario demands multiattribute bids, volume discount cost functions, inclusion of business constraints, and consideration of multiple criteria in bid evaluation. We develop a generic framework for an e-procurement system that meets the above requirements. The bid evaluation problem is formulated as a mixed linear integer multiple criteria optimization problem and goal programming is used as the solution technique. We present a case study for which we illustrate the proposed approach and a heuristic is proposed to handle the computational complexity arising out of the cost functions used in the bids