This research project identifies some factors for the justification in having parallel network links of similar reliability. There are two key questions requiring consideration: 1) When is it optimal to have or create two parallel paths of equal or similar reliability? 2) How could a multi-criteria selection method be implemented for assigning expenditure? Asset and project management always have financial constraints and this requires a constant balancing of funds to priorities. Many methods are available to address these needs but two of the most common tools are risk assessment and economic evaluations. In principal both are well utilised and generally respected in the engineering community; when it compares parallel systems both tend to favour a single priority link, a single option. Practical conception also tends to support this concept as the expenditure strengthens one link well above the alternative. The example used to demonstrate the point that there is potential for parallel paths of equal or similar reliability is the Wellington link from near the airport (Troy Street) up the coast to Paekakariri. Both the local and highway options have various benefits of ease of travel to shopping facilities. Investigating this section provides several combinations from parallel highways to highway and local roads, so will have differing management criteria and associated land use. Generalised techniques are to be applied to the network. Risk is addressed as a reliability index figure that is preset to provide a consistent parameter (equal reliability) for each link investigated. Consequences are assessed with multi-criteria selection focusing on local benefits and shortcomings. Several models are used to build an understanding on how each consequence factor impacts on the overall model and to identify consequences of such a process. Economics are briefly discussed as the engineering community and funding is almost attributed to financial constraints. No specific analytical assessment has been completed. General results indicate there are supporting arguments to undertake a multi-selection criteria assessment while comparing parallel networks. Situations do occur when there is benefit for parallel networks of equal or similar reliability and therefore equal funding to both can be supported.

Le risque d’inondations dans les zones urbaines a considérablement augmenté au cours des dernières décennies avec la croissance rapide de la population et le processus d’urbanisation à proximité des cours d’eau et des zones inondables. Afin de faire face à ce risque, différents acteurs se réunissent dans le but de proposer une solution d’aménagement du territoire, capable de le maîtriser au mieux. La solution proposée doit répondre à plusieurs objectifs de natures différentes (économiques, sociaux, politiques,…) qui sont le plus souvent contradictoires. Des outils numériques d’aide à la décision sont actuellement disponibles et fréquemment utilisés par les aménageurs pour les aider dans leurs choix d’une solution adéquate. Cependant ces outils se basent généralement sur des approches empiriques et l’efficacité des solutions proposées reste incertaine. Dans ce contexte, l’objectif des travaux réalisés au cours de cette thèse, consiste à développer une approche complémentaire aux outils d’aide à la décision en se basant principalement sur des méthodes numériques directes, telles que la modélisation 3D, la simulation numérique et l’optimisation multicritères. L’approche consiste dans un premier temps à coupler la modélisation géométrique 3D issue de Système d’Information Géographique « SIG » avec la modélisation en mécanique des fluides « CFD », afin de représenter le phénomène d’inondation urbaine avec une précision proche du réel. Cette étape permet de fournir une cartographie tridimensionnelle de différentes caractéristiques de l’inondation (Vitesses, Hauteur d’eau, étendue de l’inondation, …), et par conséquent localiser les différentes parties de la ville à aménager en priorité. Dans un second temps, en se basant sur les résultats obtenus dans la première partie, des stratégies d'optimisation multicritères sont mises en œuvre afin de trouver parmi une multitude de solutions proposées, représentant des projets d’aménagement, celle la plus convenable pour la situation étudiée, et qui satisfasse simultanément les différentes contraintes techniques, économiques et environnementales. Une telle approche permet aux décideurs à la fois d’accélérer leur procédure d’analyse du risque dans la zone urbaine et de les rassurer sur l’efficacité de la solution choisie face à ce risque. / The risk and impact of floods in urban areas has been increased in the last few decades as population and urbanization processes rapidly increase and subsequently more and more people and properties are being concentrated in flood-prone coastal zones and river flood-plains. To cope with this risk, different stakeholders meet in order to provide a land planning solution able of better managing the risk. The proposed solution must meet different kinds of objectives simultaneously (geographical, economic, social, political,...). These ones are often contradictory. Digital tools for decision support are currently available and commonly used by developers to help them in their choice of an appropriate solution. However, these tools are usually based on empirical approaches and the effectiveness of the proposed solutions is uncertain. In this context, the principal objective of this research working is to develop a complementary numerical approach to the tools of decision support based primarily on direct numerical methods, such as 3D modeling, numerical simulation and multi-criteria optimization. As a first step, the proposed approach consists to couple the geometric modeling, based on 3D data of GIS (Geographic Information System) , with the CFD modeling (Computational fluid dynamics) in order to represent the urban flooding scenario with an accuracy close to the actual . This step will provide a three-dimensional mapping of the different characteristics of the flood (velocity and height of water, the flood extent ...). Thus we can easily and quickly locate different parts of the city that will be developed in priority. As a second step, based on the results obtained in the first step, some advanced strategies of the multi-criteria optimization are implemented to find among a multitude of proposed solutions, representing the most suitable development projects for the situation studied, and meets the various technical, economic and environmental constraints. Such approach allows decision makers to both accelerate their process of risk analysis, in the urban area, and reassure the effectiveness of the chosen solution against this risk.

<p>Planning is what sustains an energy system. It is a process of analysis and ongoing decision making about what resources and energy technologies to use when supplying energy to society. This research focuses on integrated energy systems, i.e. systems that are comprised of several energy carriers – electricity, gas, hot water - and energy distribution networks. The planning of these kinds of systems is a complex process, influenced by many factors, among which the most important are the availability of energy resources and the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying energy demand. During the last 10-20 years significant changes have taken place on the world energy scene, which have important implications for energy planning. Two main factors have triggered these changes. The first factor is the immediate need to address environmental changes or more generally, to take measures that are sustainable in the long run. Sustainability can be defined in many ways and in relation to different issues such as economic and ecologic development, reduction of greenhouse gases, responsible use of natural resources, social equity, etc. In recent years, an increased awareness of these issues has been observed at all levels of the society. The second factor is the deregulation of national energy sectors in more than 50 countries. This process brought changes in the ownership of different parts of the formerly integrated energy systems. New business opportunities were created in power generation, wholesale power/gas trading and energy retailing, while the energy infrastructures remained state owned or/and under regulatory control. The newly created energy markets (many of them international) have attracted both new players (power, oil and gas companies and financial institutions) together with the old ones (integrated utilities). In parallel with this vertical separation of national energy sectors, recent studies have shown a tendency for horizontal integration at the regional/company level. For instance, in order to reduce their overall business risk, companies prefer to participate in several segments of the energy value chain (in both regulated and non-regulated activities), and often across more than one fuel commodity, such as gas and electricity or district heating. In this context, the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying the end-use energy demand became obvious in economic as well as in technological and environmental terms. Traditionally, in integrated planning, this competition did not play a big role, since the same state entity made decisions at both national and regional levels. However, in the post-deregulation era it is no longer obvious who the planner is. In many cases, planning decision at local levels involve at least three main interest groups: energy companies (and/or other investors), the state and the local community. This thesis is motivated by the need to help planners to cope with the changes in concepts and values concerning the planning of local energy supply systems. This thesis has two aims. The first aim is to improve the understanding of what planning of local systems implies and how such a process can be structured. The second aim is to contribute to the development of decision support methodologies and tools that can cope with the needs in planning. For this purpose, the use of energy modelling and Multi- Criteria Decision Analysis has been studied.</p>

The amount of information involved in many decision making situations has increased dramatically in recent years and support of some kind is often needed. Consequently, fields like Business Intelligence (BI) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) have advanced. Decision analysis applications belong to the latter category and aim to support decision making activities in businesses and organizations, and provide more clearly structured decision material to use as a basis for decisions. In spite of a belief in their potential, their employment is still limited in practice, which could partly be attributed to the fact that they are incomplete to support decision processes sufficiently in real settings. At present, e.g., the specification and execution of the elicitation of input data is often left to the discretion of the user. Yet, this involves quite a few problematic elements and is of importance for the quality of the process as a whole. This thesis focuses on more practically useful elicitation of information in decision analysis applications than what is offered today. A process model emphasizing the importance of structured elicitation of adequate input data throughout decision processes is also suggested. In order to further define the problematic aspects of elicitation, three empirical studies were conducted. The problems with eliciting precise decision data suggests that using imprecise values within elicitation is a more realistic and useful approach to strive for. Based on theory and the findings of the studies, a weight elicitation method for imprecise statements and noisy input was formalized into the Cardinal Rank Ordering of Criteria (CROC) method. This method is both compatible with an adapted prescriptive decision making model, focused on a more structured elicitation component, as well as algorithms for dealing with such data. The CROC method was employed and validated in two real-life cases, which is not so common within decision analysis research. / Mängden information i många beslutssituationer har ökat markant under senare år och det finns ofta behov av någon form av stöd. Följaktligen har områden som Business Intelligence (BI) och Beslutsstödssystem (BSS) avancerat. Beslutsanalysverktyg tillhör den senare kategorin och syftar till att fungera som stöd vid beslutsfattande inom företag och organisationer och tillhandahålla mer strukturerat underlag för beslut. Trots en tro på deras potential, så är deras användande begränsat i praktiken, vilket delvis kan tillskrivas det faktum att de är inkompletta för att stödja beslutsprocesser i tillräcklig utsträckning i verkligheten. För närvarande förutsätts, t.ex. ofta att användaren själv klarar av att specificera och utföra utvinningen (eliciteringen) av input data. Detta involverar dock ett antal problematiska delar och dess kvalité är av vikt för hela processen. Denna avhandling fokuserar på mer praktiskt användbar elicitering av information i beslutsanalys-applikationer än vad som finns att tillgå idag. En processmodell som betonar vikten av strukturerad elicitering av adekvata indata genom hela beslutsprocessen föreslås också. För att ytterligare definiera de problematiska aspekterna av elicitering utfördes tre empiriska studier. Problemen med att utvinna precisa beslutsdata antyder att användandet av oprecisa värden inom elicitering är en mer realistisk och användbar ansats att sträva efter. Baserat på teori och resultaten av studierna formaliserades en vikteliciterings-metod för oprecisa utlåtanden och osäkra indata i Cardinal Rank Ordering of Criteria (CROC) metoden. Metoden är både kompatibel med en anpassad preskriptiv beslutsmodell fokuserad på en mer strukturerad eliciteringskomponent samt algoritmer för att hantera denna typ av data. CROC-metoden användes och validerades i två riktiga fall, vilket inte är så vanligt inom beslutsanalys forskning. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Accepted. Paper 7: Submitted. </p>

Planning is what sustains an energy system. It is a process of analysis and ongoing decision making about what resources and energy technologies to use when supplying energy to society. This research focuses on integrated energy systems, i.e. systems that are comprised of several energy carriers – electricity, gas, hot water - and energy distribution networks. The planning of these kinds of systems is a complex process, influenced by many factors, among which the most important are the availability of energy resources and the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying energy demand. During the last 10-20 years significant changes have taken place on the world energy scene, which have important implications for energy planning. Two main factors have triggered these changes. The first factor is the immediate need to address environmental changes or more generally, to take measures that are sustainable in the long run. Sustainability can be defined in many ways and in relation to different issues such as economic and ecologic development, reduction of greenhouse gases, responsible use of natural resources, social equity, etc. In recent years, an increased awareness of these issues has been observed at all levels of the society. The second factor is the deregulation of national energy sectors in more than 50 countries. This process brought changes in the ownership of different parts of the formerly integrated energy systems. New business opportunities were created in power generation, wholesale power/gas trading and energy retailing, while the energy infrastructures remained state owned or/and under regulatory control. The newly created energy markets (many of them international) have attracted both new players (power, oil and gas companies and financial institutions) together with the old ones (integrated utilities). In parallel with this vertical separation of national energy sectors, recent studies have shown a tendency for horizontal integration at the regional/company level. For instance, in order to reduce their overall business risk, companies prefer to participate in several segments of the energy value chain (in both regulated and non-regulated activities), and often across more than one fuel commodity, such as gas and electricity or district heating. In this context, the competition between different energy carriers in satisfying the end-use energy demand became obvious in economic as well as in technological and environmental terms. Traditionally, in integrated planning, this competition did not play a big role, since the same state entity made decisions at both national and regional levels. However, in the post-deregulation era it is no longer obvious who the planner is. In many cases, planning decision at local levels involve at least three main interest groups: energy companies (and/or other investors), the state and the local community. This thesis is motivated by the need to help planners to cope with the changes in concepts and values concerning the planning of local energy supply systems. This thesis has two aims. The first aim is to improve the understanding of what planning of local systems implies and how such a process can be structured. The second aim is to contribute to the development of decision support methodologies and tools that can cope with the needs in planning. For this purpose, the use of energy modelling and Multi- Criteria Decision Analysis has been studied.

Abstract Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were one of the major contributors to the economic miracle of Taiwan. There are over a million SMEs, which comprise 97.7% of all Taiwanese enterprises, However, SMEs faced with high risks of failure, especially at their entrepreneurship stages, due to their lack of expertise and abilities in technologies developments, together with their disadvantages in economy scale, market, capital and business connections. Thus more than 60 incubators were founded by Taiwan Government in past seven years to help SMEs entrepreneur cope with the above threaten. These incubators vary in factors such as capabilities, facility, and resources. Therefore, the selection of an appropriate incubator is a critical issue for an SME entrepreneur. This research identifies a set of evaluating criteria within five categories: facility, technical and human resource, business administrative, knowledge source, and organization infrastructure based on extensive literature review and interview with industry experts. ELECTRE I, a multiple criteria decision making method is applied to evaluate incubators. The results provide an efficient and effective method for selecting an appropriate incubator for SME entrepreneur.

ERP¡]Enterprise Resource Planning¡^comes from manufacturing industry at first. When the times develope, it hasn¡¦t the only patent in manufacturing industry. It changes the basic IS for all kinds of industries.In the past, the related topics for the researches of the the academic circle surrounded with the topics of ERP selecting and CSF. There are very fewer related researches for how to understand and how to select ERP consultant and Consultant Company.Because the academic and the industry circle recently understand the importance of consultant, consultant for ERP implementing is the success and failure role. Base on these reasons, those cause this research to discuss the topic of ERP consultant and Consultant Company. The purpose of this research is arranging and analysising the crieteria of selecting consultant and Consutant Company by collecting records¡Bexpert interviews and questionnaire. The research uses case studey to help for the case enterprise to select the most suitable ERP consultant by ELECTRE I and provides the rational decision structure and basis for the companies that want to implement ERP. At last , the case has selected JDE from the three consultant companies of Oracle¡BJDE and Proyoung. The result of this research mainly provides feasibility evaluation model. When company considers which consultant and Consultant Company to select, he can refer this crieteria and importance from this research. The company also finds the most suitable Consultant Company by using the methods and procedures from this research.

As e-Learning has become an important trend for the training system of modern enterprises, there are many kinds of e-Learning system offered by different consulting companies with different specialties in Taiwan. To construct the best system, the enterprise must first find the real application in order to choose the optimum. The study, based on the purposes of enterprise requirement, tried to develop the methodology by using Multi-criteria Decision Making to help managers, the decision makers to evaluate an appropriate e-Learning project with a successful example of one famous ¡§steel corporation¡¨ in their evaluation by this method. From our study, the foresight in planning e-Learning system with prudent evaluation by taking the enterprise¡¦s present situation, his real needs and the evaluation model of decision making into account can avoid the prejudice of decision makers and the excessive propaganda of consulting company which might result in an inapplicable project. To the very enterprise that tries to construct his e-Learning System effectively, the methodology of Multi-criteria Decision Making provides the sequence of system selection and references for evaluation of system construction.

In this e-commerce era, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has been viewed as the entering cost for conducting the business and establishing contact with others. ERP system is very expensive and enormous complex package software, and applies the best business practice with partial adjustment and integration to suit for the operation of different enterprises. But due to the characteristics of high investement, high complexity and high risk of failure of ERP systems, misfits have been one of important issues for the implementation of ERP systems. Therefore, the selection of an appropriate ERP system has become the key factor leading to the eventual success of an ERP system implementation. And we select an appropriate ERP system by studing a case that uses ELECTRE I as evaluating tool. This paper first identifies a set of evaluating criteria based on the extensive literature review and the considerat5ion of the environment and characteristics of ERP systems. Once the list was generated, an iterative process of personal interview with the consultant, suppliers, users and managers was conducted to modify the evaluating criteria in order to insure the integrity of it. The result of this study is not only can contribute to the understanding of the functionalities of an ERP system, but also can provide a practical guideline for the selection of an ERP system.

The objective of this Thesis is to develop a methodological framework to guide the decision maker in selecting a decommissioning method for offshore wind farms which is supported by the majority of relevant stakeholders. Initially, a literature review has been conducted to find out which methods are available to decommission an off-shore wind farm and which criteria can influence the outcome.Two methods have been found in literature, namely partial and total removal of the foundation. Furthermore, twenty one (21) criteria have been found which could influence the results. These criteria can be divided in four categories which are economical, environmental, social and technical.Subsequently, a methodological framework was developed that included four steps. First, the possible decommissioning methods should be identified. Following on that, information should be collected and stakeholders should be selected. Subsequently, criteria should be selected and as last a multi criteria decision aid method should be used. It is expected that this procedure would lead to a decommissioning method which is supported by most of the stakeholders.To validate the methodological framework, a case study in the Netherlands has been selected. For this case study, four (4) stakeholders were identified and eleven (11) criteria were assessed. The outranking multi-criteria decision aid method PROMETHEE II was selected and results were obtained. Analyzing the results, it was possible to conclude that only one stakeholder preferred the total removal method while the other three stakeholders preferred the partial removal method.