Multi-criteria Optimization System for Decision Making in Construction Design and Management

Abstract

All new ideas and possible variants of decisions mustbe compared according to many criteria. The complexnature of decision-making requires practitioners to selectinvestment options based on a wider variety of policyconsiderations in addition to cost benefit analysis and puretechnical considerations. In economics and decisionmaking it is essential to be able to take into account theimpacts of cultural, social, moral, legislative, demographic,economic, environmental, governmental and technologicalchange, as well as changes in the business world oninternational, national, regional and local markets. Costbenefit analysis approach is a useful tool for investmentdecision-making from an economic perspective. Cautionsshould also be given to the methods of determining thevalue of social and local interests. Some socialexternalities, such as employment and regional economicimpacts, are generally omitted in current practices.Current practices tend to use cardinal or ordinal scales inmeasure in non-monetized criteria. The use of unreasonablemonetization methods in some cases has discredited costbenefit analysis in the eyes of decision makers and thepublic. It may be appropriate to consider these externalities inqualitative forms in a multi-criteria analysis. Multi-criteriadecision making is used in various areas of humanactivities. The Criteria can be qualitative and quantitative.They usually have different units of measurement anddiffer in optimization direction. The normalization aims atobtaining comparable scales of criteria values. In the newversion of the program LEVI 4 the normalization methodsare including vector, linear scale, non-linear and newlogarithmic techniques may be used. This softwareconsiders the main aspects of two-sided game problems.The following strategic principles are used: Wald's rule,Savage criterion, Hurwicz's rule, Laplace's rule, Bayes'srule and Hodges-Lehmann rule. This program isdemonstrated by considering a real case study involving 4evaluation criteria of the currently used external walls ofindividual residential buildings.