Search results for "ACCEPTABILITY ANALYSIS"
showing 10 items of 13 documents
Stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis using the data envelopment model
2006
Abstract Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA-2) are methods for evaluating alternatives based on multiple criteria. While DEA is mainly an ex-post tool used for classifying alternatives into efficient and inefficient ones, SMAA-2 is an ex-ante tool for supporting multiple criteria decision-making. Both methods use a kind of value function where the importance of criteria is modeled using weights. Unlike many other methods, neither DEA nor SMAA-2 requires decision-makers’ weights as input. Instead, these so-called non-parametric methods explore the weight space in order to identify weights favorable for each alternative. This paper introd…
Decision support for centralizing cargo at a Moroccan airport hub using stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis
2010
The geographical location of Morocco places it at the heart of important sea, air, rail and motorway transport routes between four continents. In this study we evaluate different alternatives to centralize multimodal cargo at a Moroccan airport hub. The choice depends on different socio-economical criteria, the geographical location, and the environmental impacts. Some of the criteria can be measured quantitatively, while for others only qualitative assessment is feasible. Furthermore, significant uncertainty is present in both the criteria measurements and the preferences. We aided this decision process using Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA). SMAA is a method that all…
Multicriteria evaluation of sustainable energy solutions for Colosseum
2017
Abstract Colosseum is a large office building in the capital region of Finland. The building owner operates on the highly competitive office rental market. With increasing emphasis on environmental responsibility, energy efficiency and sustainable energy solutions can provide competitive edge on the rental market. This study evaluates in terms of multiple criteria different alternatives to enhance the energy solutions of the building. The alternatives included different configurations of solar power, ground source heat, and roof constructions, along with district heating. Decision criteria included internal rate of return, energy efficiency, CO2 emissions, and attractiveness. Attractiveness…
ORDINAL MEASUREMENTS WITH INTERVAL CONSTRAINTS IN THE EIA PROCESS FOR SITING A WASTE STORAGE AREA
2009
We describe application of multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure for siting a waste storage area. The world’s largest biofuel-based combined heat and power (CHP) plant was built in Pietarsaari, Finland. The plant produces certain byproducts, such as flue dust and bottom ash, which need to be processed and stored to prevent releases to the environment. Different storage sites will have different impacts on people, nature, and the economy. Cardinal measurement of the different impacts was considered too costly. Instead, ordinal measurement of all criteria was applied; i.e., experts ranked the alternative storage sites according to each c…
Complementary Judgment Matrix Method with Imprecise Information for Multicriteria Decision-Making
2018
The complementary judgment matrix (CJM) method is an MCDA (multicriteria decision aiding) method based on pairwise comparisons. As in AHP, the decision-maker (DM) can specify his/her preferences using pairwise comparisons, both between different criteria and between different alternatives with respect to each criterion. The DM specifies his/her preferences by allocating two nonnegative comparison values so that their sum is 1. We measure and pinpoint possible inconsistency by inconsistency errors. We also compare the consistency of CJM and AHP trough simulation. Because preference judgments are always more or less imprecise or uncertain, we introduce a way to represent the uncertainty throu…
The analytic hierarchy process with stochastic judgements
2014
The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a widely-used method for multicriteria decision support based on the hierarchical decomposition of objectives, evaluation of preferences through pairwise comparisons, and a subsequent aggregation into global evaluations. The current paper integrates the AHP with stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA), an inverse-preference method, to allow the pairwise comparisons to be uncertain. A simulation experiment is used to assess how the consistency of judgements and the ability of the SMAA-AHP model to discern the best alternative deteriorates as uncertainty increases. Across a range of simulated problems results indicate that, according to c…
SMAA in Robustness Analysis
2016
Stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) is a simulation based method for discrete multicriteria decision aiding problems where information is uncertain, imprecise, or partially missing. In SMAA, different kind of uncertain information is represented by probability distributions. Because SMAA considers simultaneously the uncertainty in all parameters, it is particularly useful for robustness analysis. Depending on the problem setting, SMAA determines all possible rankings or classifications for the alternatives, and quantifies the possible results in terms of probabilities. This chapter describes SMAA in robustness analysis using a real-life decision problem as an example. Bas…
Multicriteria Decision Analysis for Choosing the Remediation Method for a Landfill Based on Mixed Ordinal and Cardinal Information
2009
We describe a real-life application of a multicriteria method in the context of remediating a landfill in Finland. The landfill was used for dumping industrial waste during the years 1950 to 1965. During that time many harmful chemicals were stored in landfills among other waste. Therefore, this—and possibly several other—landfills have to be remediated. In this application, seven different remediation options were evaluated based on 13 criteria. For some criteria, cardinal measures with associated uncertainties were obtained. For other criteria, only ordinal (ranking) information was available. The problem was analyzed using the Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis with Ordinal …
Optimization and Multicriteria Evaluation of District Heat Production and Storage
2019
Climate change mitigation policy requires reducing dependence on fossil fuels and transition to low carbon energy production in district heating (DH). We study here inclusion of two kinds of renewable energy to a CHP based DH system in Finland: solar heat and ground source heat. In addition, we apply heat storages to balance the gap between production and fluctuating demand. The optimal operation of the extended systems is determined by a simulation and optimization model to minimize the operating costs. We evaluate the different possible extensions in terms of multiple economic, technical and environmental criteria using Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA). The results s…
A stochastic method for robustness analysis in sorting problems
2009
ELECTRE TRI is a multiple criteria decision aiding sorting method with a history of successful real-life applications. In ELECTRE TRI, values for certain parameters have to be provided. We propose a new method, SMAA-TRI, that is based on stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA), for analyzing the stability of such parameters. The stability analysis can be used for deriving robust conclusions. SMAA-TRI allows ELECTRE TRI to be used with uncertain, arbitrarily distributed values for weights, the lambda cutting level, and profiles. The method consists of analyzing finite spaces of arbitrarily distributed parameter values. Monte Carlo simulation is applied in this in order to desc…