The Governments' promotion and support of Best Value within the Social Housing Sector has been a prime catalyst in the move by Registered Social Landlord's [RSL's] away from the traditional culture of acceptance of the lowest bid towards consideration of both price and quality criteria as a basis for contractor selection. Manifestly this radical change in the way the sector procures its construction services has forced many of its stakeholders to undergo significant cultural and organisational changes within a relatively short period of time, and problems have developed during this transitional period that have affected the efficiency of the best value process. This research traced the root causes of these problems and its overarching aim was to develop an approach which will enable RSL's and their stakeholders to streamline the best value tender analysis procedure thereby allowing tenders to be dealt with effectively and efficiently whilst also creating a transparent and auditable decision making process. The approach has been established using a mixed methods research methodology utilising; case studies, surveys, rational decision analysis and system evaluation. The main output of the research is the development of a support tool known by the acronym OVID-BV which aids the multi objective decision making process. The underlying rationale for the support tool is based on the innovative use of uncertainty in decision making and the functionality of the tool uses a combination of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), multi attribute utility theory (MAUT) and whole life costing (WLC).

One of the petroleum industry?s goals is to reduce the environmental impact of oil and gas operations in environmentally sensitive areas. To achieve this, a number of Environmentally Friendly Drilling (EFD) technologies have been developed to varying degrees. For example, the use of an elevated platform as an alternative to the gravel pad is less intrusive and leads to a more environmentally friendly approach to drilling operations. Elevated drilling platforms will require the use of piles. Another alternative to the gravel pad is the use of composite mats. Since the demand of low impact technologies for drill site construction has rapidly increased, the parametric study for the feasibility of using pile foundations and composite mats is conducted in this research. Even though a number of EFD technologies have already been developed to varying degrees, few have been integrated into a field demonstrable drilling system (i.e., combination of technologies) compatible with ecologically sensitive areas. In general, it is difficult to select the best combination of EFD technologies for a given site because there are many possible combinations and many different evaluation criteria. The proposed technology evaluation method is based on a systems analysis that can be used for integrating current and new EFD technologies into an optimal EFD system. An optimization scheme is suggested based on a combination of multi-attribute utility theory and exhaustively enumerating all possible technology combinations to provide a quantitative rationale and suggest the best set of systems according to a set of criteria, with the relative importance of the different criteria defined by the decision-maker. In this research, the sensitivity of the optimal solution to the weight factors and the effects of the uncertainty of input scores are also discussed using a case study. An application of the proposed approach is described by conducting a case study in Green Lake at McFaddin, TX. The main purpose of this case study is to test the proposed technology evaluation protocol in a real site and then to refine the protocol. This research describes the results of the case study which provided a more logical and comprehensive approach that maximized the economic and environmental goals of both the landowner and the oil company leaseholder.

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In what way does different stakeholders assess a decision and its consequences, and how do these assessments differ? When a company stands before a big decision, they need to consider aspects that are economic, ecologic and social. To make a good decision they need to consider the society and its different stakeholder groups. This study examined how different groups values and weights different criteria. The study has been done with the project Sundsvall logistics park as a case, with criteria related to that project. The goal of the study was to find a way to value and weight different criteria and then compare how the company and the stakeholders assesses these criteria. This has been done through interviews with relevant people that has got extra knowledge about the project Sundsvall logistics park, and through a survey that has been sent out to residents of Sundsvall. The informants and respondents got to assess values and weights to the criteria relative to an indirect alternative where the logistics park isn’t built. The data was then compiled using multi attribute utility theory as a tool to present the comparison. The result of the study suggests that the differences between the valuations and weightings of the criteria is partly due to an uncertainty in how the logistics park would affect the criteria, but that the biggest reason probably depends on what perspective the person is viewing the logistics park from. If the person is viewing the logistics park from an industrial perspective, the criteria related to industrial development is getting more important and is going to take up more room in the analysis. If the person is viewing the logistics park from an individual and social perspective, the criteria related to that is more important and takes up more room in the analysis. / På vilket sätt uppskattar olika intressenter ett beslut och dess konsekvenser, och hur skiljer sig dessa uppskattningar åt? När företag idag står inför stora beslut behöver de ta hänsyn till aspekter som är både ekonomiska, ekologiska och sociala. För att beslutet ska bli bra behöver de ta hänsyn till samhället och dess olika intressentgrupper. Denna studie är en undersökning av hur olika grupper värderar och viktar olika kriterier. Studien har utförts mot projektet Sundsvall Logistikpark med kriterier relaterade till projektet. Målet med studien har varit att hitta ett sätt att värdera och vikta olika kriterier för att sedan göra en jämförelse av hur företaget och intressenterna uppskattar dessa kriterier. För att göra detta har intervjuer utförts med personer som är extra insatta i projektet med Sundsvall logistikpark och en enkät skickats ut till boende i Sundsvall. Informanterna och respondenterna har fått uppskatta värden och vikter på kriterierna utifrån ett indirekt alternativ där logistikparken inte byggs. Datan har sedan sammanställts genom att använda multiattributsnyttoteori som verktyg för att presentera jämförelsen. Resultatet av undersökningen tyder på att de skillnader som finns i värderingar och viktningar av kriterierna dels beror på en viss osäkerhet angående hur logistikparken skulle kunna påverka de olika kriterierna och hur ett värde kan uppskattas på dessa, men att den största orsaken troligen beror på vilket perspektiv personen ser logistikparken på. Om personen ser på logistikparken från ett industriellt perspektiv blir kriterier som har med industriell utveckling att göra viktigare och tar större plats i analysen. Om personen ser på logistikparken från ett individuellt och socialt perspektiv blir sådana kriterier viktigare och tar större plats i analysen

Seismic rehabilitation of structural systems is an effective approach for reducing potential seismic losses such as social and economic losses. However, little or no effort has been made to develop a framework for making decisions on seismic rehabilitation of structural systems that systematically incorporates conflicting multiple criteria and uncertainties inherent in the seismic hazard and in the systems themselves. This study develops a decision support framework for seismic rehabilitation of structural systems incorporating uncertainties inherent in both the system and the seismic hazard, and demonstrates its application with detailed examples. The decision support framework developed utilizes the HAZUS method for a quick and extensive estimation of seismic losses associated with structural systems. The decision support framework allows consideration of multiple decision attributes associated with seismic losses, and multiple alternative seismic rehabilitation schemes represented by the objective performance level. Three multi-criteria decision models (MCDM) that are known to be effective for decision problems under uncertainty are employed and their applicability for decision analyses in seismic rehabilitation is investigated. These models are Equivalent Cost Analysis (ECA), Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT), and Joint Probability Decision Making (JPDM). Guidelines for selection of a MCDM that is appropriate for a given decision problem are provided to establish a flexible decision support system. The resulting decision support framework is applied to a test bed system that consists of six hospitals located in the Memphis, Tennessee, area to demonstrate its capabilities.

There has been an increasing relevance of the cultural sector in the economic and social development of different countries. However, this sector continues without much input from multi-criteria decision-making (MDCM) techniques and sustainability analysis, which are widely used in other sectors. This paper proposes an MCDM model to assess the sustainability of a musical institution’s program. To define the parameters of the proposed model, qualitative interviews with relevant representatives of Catalan cultural institutions and highly recognized professionals in the sector were performed. The content of the 2015–2016 season of the ‘Palau de la Música Catalana’, a relevant Catalan musical institution located in Barcelona, was used as a case study to empirically test the method. The method allows the calculation of a season value index (SVI), which serves to make more sustainable decisions on musical season programs according to the established criteria. The sensitivity analysis carried out for different scenarios shows the robustness of the method. The research suggests that more complex decision settings, such as MCDM methods that are widely used in other sectors, can be easily applied to the sustainable management of any type of cultural institution. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this method was never applied to a cultural institution and with real data. / Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Ces dernières années, la conception de produit vise de plus en plus à remettre le client aucentre du processus de développement. De nouvelles méthodes et outils ont permis de formaliser nonseulement l’identification des besoins et des attentes du client mais également leur transformation enexigences. Cependant, malgré les progrès récemment apparus dans ce domaine, la notion de valeurperçue par le client qui est associée au produit reste faiblement considérée durant le développement duproduit alors que la perception de cette valeur par le client va jouer un rôle clé au moment du choix duproduit.Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une approche normative visant l’intégration de la notion devaleur du produit dans le processus d’établissement des exigences. Un état de l’art présente lesconcepts et les pratiques impliqués dans le déploiement de la fonction de qualité, étroitement liée auprocessus de spécification des exigences basé sur la valeur. Ces concepts sont relatifs aux notionsd’objectifs, de modèles de la valeur, de fonctions d’utilité multi attributs et de hiérarchie et de réseauxd’objectifs.Notre approche se déroule en 4 étapes : (1) identifier et structurer les objectifs à partir del’expression des attentes du client, (2) spécifier les attributs de la valeur perçue par le client etconstruire un modèle de la valeur client, (3) transformer les objectifs en exigences pour construire unmodèle global de la valeur produit et (4) dériver ce modèle global en un modèle de la valeur pourchaque composant du produit. Cette approche permet ainsi de prendre en compte explicitement lavaleur produit perçue par le client en l’intégrant dans les phases de développement, ce qui favorise uneconception proactive dirigée par la valeur.Nous l’illustrons sur un exemple d’avion de ligne développé en Vanguard Studio. Cet exemplea été élaboré par l’ensemble des partenaires au cours du projet Européen IST CRESCENDO et sert decas-test pour ce projet / Recently customer-based product development is becoming a popular paradigm. Customer needsand expectations are identified and transformed into requirements in systematic processes for productdesign with the help of various methods and tools. However, in many cases, these approaches fail tofocus on the perceived value that is crucially important when customers make the decision ofpurchasing a product. The requirements specification derived from these approaches are typicallyvalue-implicit.In this thesis, a prescriptive approach to derive value-based requirements specification is proposedby integrating the concept of value into the house of quality of quality function deployment. Anintegrated set of theories, methods and concepts is introduced in order to mitigate the sevenmethodological problems of house of quality regarding to establishing appropriate value-basedrequirements specification. The foundations of the approach include concepts of objective, valuemodel and consequence model, methods of means-ends objectives network, fundamental objectiveshierarchy, response surface methodology and value-driven design, and theory of multi-attribute utilitytheory. The procedure of the approach is a four-step process: (1) identify and structure objectives frominitial customer statements of expectations, (2) specify attributes and construct customer value model,(3) transform fundamental objectives into engineering characteristics to construct system value model,and (4) derive component value models from system value model. Through this procedure, initialcustomer statements can be reasonably derived into customer value model, system value model andcomponent value model. The benefits of the approach are that it enables (1) reasonably qualifying andquantifying customer value, and performing value modeling and simulation, (2) perceived customervalue being subsequently used reactively for design evaluation, and proactively for value-drivendesign.The approach is applied in the context of a European Community’s R&D project CRESCENDO tohelp constructing airlines’ group value model for commercial aircraft development. This applicationfocuses on the first two-steps of the approach, and the value models are implemented in businesssoftware Vanguard Studio

The lack of safe drinking water worldwide has drawn the attention of decision makers to riverbank filtration (RBF) for its many advantages in purifying surface water. This study provides an overview of the hydrogeologic, fluvial, and environmental influences on the performance of RBF systems and aims to develop a model for RBF site selection. Using multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT), this study structured the RBF siting problem and assessed a multiplicative utility function for the decision maker. In a case study, geostatistical methods were used to acquire the necessary data and geographic information systems (GIS) were used to screen sites suitable for RBF implementation. Those suitable sites were then evaluated and ranked using the multi-attribute utility model. The result showed that sites can be identified as most preferred among the selected suitable sites based on their expected utility values. This study definitively answers the question regarding the capability of MAUT in RBF site selection. Further studies are needed to verify the influences of the attributes on the performance of RBF systems.:Abstract iii Zusammenfassung iv Acknowledgments v Table of Contents vi List of Tables viii List of Figures x Definition of terms xiii 1. Abbreviations xiii 2. Symbols xiii Part I Introduction 1 1. Introduction 2 2. Statement of purpose 2 3. Research questions 3 4. Overview of methodology 3 5. Organization of the dissertation 3 Part II Fundamentals and Literature Review 5 1. The definition of bank filtration 6 2. The Significance of RBF 7 2.1 RBF in drinking water supply 7 2.2 Benefits of RBF for China 14 3. RBF Site Selection 19 3.1 RBF site selection model 20 3.2 Definition of successful RBF sites 24 4. Factors Affecting RBF Site Selection 26 4.1 River hydrology/hydraulics 27 4.2 Geology 28 4.3 Land cover 36 4.4 Well field location 36 4.5 Water quality 37 4.6 Aquifer properties 38 4.7 Distance to river 41 4.8 Riverbed characteristics 43 5. Effect of Clogging on Yield 46 6. Summary 51 Part III Developing a Multi-attribute Utility Model for RBF Site Selection 53 1. Introduction 54 2. Objectives and Attributes 54 3. Assessment of the Utility Function 57 3.1 Investigation of the qualitative preference structure 58 3.2 Assessment of component utility function 62 3.3 Assessment of the scaling constants 63 4. Results 67 5. Discussion 69 6. Summary 74 Part IV Case Study 75 1. Introduction 76 2. Materials and Methods 78 2.1 GIS data collection 78 2.1.1 Geologic data 79 2.1.2 Land cover data 79 2.1.3 Groundwater quality data 80 2.1.4 Aquifer properties data 80 2.1.5 Surface water area data 80 2.1.6 Surface water quality data 81 2.1.7 Streambed material data 81 2.2 Kriging the saturated thickness 91 2.3 Aggregation of all constraint maps 103 3. Results 105 3.1 Kriging 105 3.2 Suitable sites 105 4. Discussion 109 4.1 A discussion of the kriging results 109 4.2 A discussion of the multi-attribute utility model results 117 5. Summary 122 Part V Conclusions and Recommendations 123 1. Conclusion and Recommendation 124 Appendix 1 Environmental quality standards for surface water (GB 3838-2002) 125 Appendix 2 Quality standard for groundwater (GB14848-93) 127 Appendix 3 Explanation to Germany’s RBF site location data 130 Appendix 4 Layer information of drillings 133 Appendix 5 Streambed materials used by Schälchli (1993) 141 Appendix 6 Interview and questionnaires 143 Appendix 7 Surface water area of Jilin City 150 Bibliography 152

We develop a detailed, large-scale, airspace planning and collaborative decision-making model (APCDM), that is part of an $11.5B, 10-year, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-sponsored effort to increase U.S. National Airspace (NAS) capacity by 30 percent. Given a set of flights that must be scheduled during some planning horizon, we use a mixed-integer programming formulation to select a set of flight plans from among alternatives subject to flight safety, air traffic control workload, and airline equity constraints. Novel contributions of this research include three-dimensional probabilistic conflict analyses, the derivation of valid inequalities to tighten the conflict safety representation constraints, the development of workload metrics based on average (and its variance from) peak load measures, and the consideration of equity among airline carriers in absorbing the costs related to re-routing, delays, and cancellations. We also propose an improved set of flight plan cost factors for representing system costs and investigating fairness issues by addressing flight dependencies occurring in hubbed operations, as well as market factors such as schedule convenience, reliability, and the timeliness of connections. The APCDM model has potential use for both tactical and strategic applications, such as air traffic control in response to severe weather phenomenon or spacecraft launches, FAA policy evaluation, Homeland Defense contingency planning, and military air campaign planning. The model is tested to consider various airspace restriction scenarios imposed by dynamic severe weather systems and space launch Special Use Airspace (SUA) impositions. The results from this model can also serve to augment the FAA's National Playbook of standardized flight profiles in different disruption-prone regions of the National Airspace. / Ph. D.

Made available in DSpace on 2009-11-18T19:01:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2003 / Auctions are secular institutions used in the commercial relationships among individuaIs and organizations. They provi de greater flexibility to the processes of determination of prices and allocation of goods, increasing the space for negotiations among buyers and sellers. In the Internet, they have been used, in a growing way, in B2B and G2B electronic commerce, mostly through the model of reverse auctions. However, its unidimensional aspect reduces the negotiations to the variable price, producing, many times, bad results. In the Brazilian case, the Federal Government launched Comprasnet, an Internet public emarketplace, through which public organizations acquire goods and services from registered suppliers. Considering alI the available bidding modalities, 'Electronic Pregão' stands out, as an unidimensional reverse auction, based on price, through which suppliers dispute for contracts of the public administration. In the present work, the author proposes a multicriteria decision-making approach, based on Multi-attribute Utility Theory, as an alternative for the adoption of multi-attribute reverse auctions, adding value to Brazilian Public Buying Organizations. / Leilões são instituições seculares utilizadas nas relações comerciais entre indivíduos e organizações. Provêem maior flexibilidade aos processos de determinação de preços e alocação de bens, aumentando o espaço para negociações entre compradores e vendedores. Na Internet, têm sido empregados, de maneira crescente, em atividades de comércio eletrônico B2B e G2B, em sua maioria, através da modalidade de leilão reverso. No entanto, seu aspecto unidimensional reduz as negociações à variável preço, produzindo, muitas vezes, resultados aquém do desejado. No caso brasileiro, o Governo Federal instituiu o Portal Comprasnet, através do qual, as organizações públicas adquirem bens e serviços de fornecedores cadastrados. Dentre as modalidades de licitação disponíveis, destaca-se o Pregão Eletrônico, um mecanismo de leilão eletrônico reverso baseado no atributo preço, através do qual, fornecedores submetem lances decrescentes, na disputa por contratos do setor público. No presente trabalho, o autor propõe uma abordagem de decisão multicritério, baseada na Teoria da Utilidade Multiatributo, como uma alternativa para a adoção de leilões reversos baseados em múltiplos atributos e, consequentemente, para uma maior agregação de valor pelas organizações compradoras do setor público brasileiro.