2 research outputs found
A Proposed FAHP-based Technology Selection and Specification Methodology
In recent decades, selecting technology has become more difficult than ever due to
complexity and abundance of technological options, higher cost of technology
development, and rapid diffusion of technologies (Shehabuddeen et at., 2006). There is a
visible need to decision makers to adopt appropriate methods for technology selection
(TS). Most of the proposed approaches in the literature treat TS as a multi-criteria
decision-making (MCDM) problem. For example, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
(Saaty, 1980) was proposed for general MCDM problems and was proposed to address
TS problems.
However, the proposed MCDM methods in literature consider TS as a decision making
process for support of project justification, and do not consider TS as a process within the
system development life cycle (SDLC). In fact, both industrial practices and literature
suggest that TS may happen in both or either 1) project justification stage (before SDLC
begins), and 2) system design (an essential system development phase in SDLC). Project
justification and system design have different concerns in TS problem. Project
justification aims to make decision for strategic benefits, and system design aims to
satisfy requirement specifications, although the specifications may also include some
strategic requirements such as cost and development lead-time. There is lack of research
attempt to incorporate requirement specifications into a TS problem.
Furthermore, there are particular issues must be concerned in system design by TS, and
these issues may not addressed by general MCDM problem. The research points out two
system design issues: 1. a TS problem may require a solution composed by sub-solutions;
and 2. there's an opportunity to improve efficiency by integrating TS with technology
specifications (TSP) (a system design activity beside TS). These two issues present
challenge to conventional MCDM approach.
TS is a necessary process in system design in some IT projects, and thereby system
designer faces two challenges as described above: 1) requirement specifications must be
considered as TS criteria, and 2) system design issues must be addressed. As these two
challenges are not addressed by literatures and are regarded as the gap, the research aims
to bridge the gap by propose a new methodology for TS as well as TSP. The proposed
methodology is based on FAHP (Fuzzy AHP), a MCDM approach, but has features to
address above challenges. The ultimate objective of the proposed methodology is to
achieve additional benefit - increased effectiveness and increased efficiency. The thesis
presents not only the study of TS problem and relevant topics, and development of the
proposed methodology, but also to validate the potential benefit