Some Thoughts on MCDM: Myths and Ideas
Decision making is a most important function and process of management. It is one of the most pervasive problems of management and a pervasive problem in general. Multiple criteria decision making is an approach to decision making. It is the making of decisions taking into consideration multiple conflicting objectives. How do we make decisions? What is involved? There are many simple paradigms, and until recently about all that could be said was that you should list the alternatives, score them on certain dimensions, and then somehow aggregate the scores, and choose an alternative. Unfortunately, many excellent decision makers simply choose an alternative, based on instinct, intuition, or feel. Then they go on. Though that is fine in many cases; in some cases it is not. In this paper I consider some myths of decision making. I then propose some steps that we, as decision analysts and scientists, should consider taking to try to sensitize decision makers to thinking more about their decisions and making better decisions.
Approximation method for computationally expensive nonconvex multiobjective optimization problems
Haanpaa, Tomi Approximation Method for Computationally Expensive Nonconvex Multiobjective Optimization Problems Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla, 2012, 180 p. (Jyvaskyla Studies in Computing ISSN 1456-5390; 157) ISBN 978-951-39-4967-9 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-4968-6 (PDF) Finnish summary Diss. The importance of optimization for decision makers solving real-life engineering problems has increased in recent decades. In the literature, methods created for multiobjective optimization problems are typically directed for problems where objective function values can be calculated fast. If function evaluations are computationally expensive, i.e. time-consuming, then only fewmethods are available and, usually, they involve assumptions like convex objective functions. To be able to solve more demanding multiobjective optimization problems in future, both the nonconvexity and the computational cost of the problem in question must be considered. In this thesis, an approximation method, Interactive HyperBox Exploration (IHBE), is proposed for computationally expensive nonconvex multiobjective optimization problems. The IHBE method has been developed so that a decision maker can conveniently investigate the objective space and learn about possibilities and limitations of solutions which are available for themultiobjective optimization problem at hand. In order to lessen the computational expense of the problem, an approximation of the Pareto front is used in the method. The approximation is based on a surrogate function and pre-calculated Pareto optimal objective vectors. By specifying desirable upper and lower bounds for the vectors, the decision maker makes queries about what kind of approximated Pareto optimal objective vectors are available. The method either presents approximated Pareto optimal objective vectors satisfying the bounds or helps the decision maker in setting the bounds in a way that approximated Pareto optimal objective vectors can be found.
Regional strategies for the minerals industries of the states of the SADCC
The SADCC has been in existence for eleven years but little progress has been made in regional coordination of the minerals sector even though this sector is the most important exporter of the region. There is however scope for minerals development at the regional level.