CE 22: Multi-Attribute Decision Analysis 

MULTI-ATTRIBUTED/CRITERIA
DECISION MAKING

MA. BRIDA LEA DIOLA

CE 22: Engineering Economics
UP Institute of Civil Engineering
2nd sem AY 19-20
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MULTI-ATTRIBUTE DESICIONS
 Decision making includes both monetary and nonmonetary considerations
(attributes).

 Value (as conceived by Aristotle in 350 B.C.) includes:

➢ economic
➢ moral
➢ aesthetic
➢ social
➢ political
➢ religious
➢ judicial

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MULTI-ATTRIBUTED DESICIONS
 Also call multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
 consists of constructing a global preference relation for a
set of alternatives evaluated using several criteria

 selection of the best actions from a set of alternatives,

each of which is evaluated against multiple, and often
conflicting criteria.
- Cost can be assessed using Eng’g Econ (e.g. PW Method, B/C
ratio etc.)
- Other attributes such as environmental impact, aesthetic etc. need
to be considered for holistic decision

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MULTI-ATTRIBUTED DECISION MAKING

Four elements
 Decision makers

 Objectives/Goals

 Criteria

 Alternatives

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Examples of Multi-Criteria Problems

 In determining an electric route for power

transmission in a city, several criteria could be
considered:

 Cost
 Health
 Reliability
 Importance of areas

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Examples of Multi-Criteria Problems

 Locating a nuclear power plant involves criteria

such as:

 Safety
 Health
 Environment
 Cost

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CHOICE OF ATTRIBUTES/CRITERIA
 Each attribute distinguishes at least two alternatives (Operationality)

 Each attribute captures a unique dimension or facet of the decision

problem (i.e., attributes are independent and nonredundant)
(Redundancy)

 Attributes, in a collective sense, are assumed to be sufficient for the

purpose of selecting the best alternative (Completeness)

 Differences in values assigned to each attribute are presumed to be

meaningful in distinguishing among feasible alternatives

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Additional Notes
 Completeness: It is important to ensure that all of the important criteria are
included.
 Redundancy: In principle, criteria that have been judged relatively
unimportant or to be duplicates should be removed at a very early stage.
 Operationality: It is important that each alternative can be judged against each
criterion.

 Mutual independence of criteria: Straightforward applications of MCDA

require that preferences associated with the consequences of the alternatives are
independent of each other from one criterion to the next.
 Number of criteria: An excessive number of criteria leads to extra analytical
effort in assessing input data and can make communication of the results of the
analysis more difficult.

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DIMENSIONALITY OF THE PROBLEM

 Compensatory models
 collapses all information into a single dimension
 changes in the values of a particular attribute can be offset,
or traded off against, opposing changes in another attribute

 Noncompensatory models
 retain the individuality of the attributes as the best
alternative is being determined
 full dimensional analysis
 trade-offs among attributes are not permitted

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NONCOMPENSATORY MODELS

 Dominance – screening method for eliminating inferior alternatives

 Satisficing – method of feasible ranges – establishes minimum or

maximum acceptable values (the standard) for each attribute

 Disjunctive Resolution – similar to satisficing, except this method

evaluates each alternative on the “best” value achieved for any
attribute

 Lexicography – especially suitable for decisions in which a single

attribute is judged more important than all other attributes

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COMPENSATORY MODELS

 Basic principle behind all compensatory

models, which involve a single dimension, is
that values for all attributes must be converted
to a common measurement scale such as
dollars or utiles.

 A utile is a dimensionless unit of worth.

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 Simple multi-attribute rating technique (SMART)

 Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)
 Analytic Network Process (ANP)
• Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution
(TOPSIS)
• Elimination et Choice Translating Reality (ELECTRE)
• Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation
(PROMETHEE)
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MAUT concepts

 basis: there is a single dimensional value measure

 it is cardinal, can be used for ranking

 analyst’s job - find that function

 measure accurately
 scores
 weights

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SMART
 MAUT is a little abstract
 difficult to accurately develop tradeoffs

 SMART based on the same theory

 simpler implementation
 linear form
 direct entry of relative scores & weights

 For CE 22, we will adopt the SMART concept. Other

methods are more advanced and used in other
projects (i.e in Industrial Engineering).

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SMART (Simple Multi-Attributed Rating

Technique)
1. Ordinal Scaling – ranking attributes in order of decreasing importance. For
example, the three relevant attributes for a decision problem might be safety,
cost, and completion (speed). After due consideration, decision maker(s) might
decide that cost is more important than either safety or completion, and that
safety is more important than completion. Thus the rank ordering would be
1. Cost
2. Safety
3. Completion
This information could then be used for further subjective or objective
consideration of alternatives, as shown next.
Note: Attributes may have equal ranking depending on the decision maker(s).

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SMART (Simple Multi-Attributed Rating

Technique)
2. Weighting attributes – quantifying relative importance of attributes on
a dimensionless scale from, say, 0 to 1, 0 to 10 or 0 to 100. For example,
the three attributes in method 1 might be weighted as follows on a 0 to
100 scale, with 100 being assigned to the most important attribute:

Cost 100
Safety 60
Completion 40
Σ = 200

The relative weights above can be used as they are. However, it is

commonly thought helpful to “normalize” them by dividing each by the
total and multiplying times 100 so that each weight will be points out of
100, which are the terms in which people commonly think.
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SMART (Simple Multi-Attributed Rating

Technique)

Normalize the Weights

Attribute Weight Normalized Weight
Cost 100 (100/200)*100 = 50
Safety 60 (60/200)*100 = 30
Completion 40 (40/200)*100 = 20
Σ = 200 Σ = 100

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SMART (Simple Multi-Attributed Rating

Technique)
3. Weighted evaluation of alternatives – quantifying how well each
alternative (or investment opportunity) meets each attribute on a
dimensionless scale and then summing the product of the
“evaluations” and their respective “weightings” (from method 2) for
each alternative.

For example, suppose that a decision maker is comparing

alternative bridge designs A and B according to the three weighted
attributes given above. Upon due consideration, he arrives at the
following mostly subjective evaluation ratings of how well each
alternative meets each attribute (on an arbitrary scale of 0 to 10).

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SMART (Simple Multi-Attributed Rating

Technique)

Table. Calculation of weighted evaluation of alternatives

a Weighted evaluation = normalized attribute weight x Evaluation Rating/10.

Thus alternative B is shown to be slightly better than A by a score 81 to 79.
Note, from statistics POV, this difference may not be significant. In your
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conclusion, instead of definite answer, you may recommend further analysis.
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A simple example of using SMART

 Objective
 Selecting a car

 Criteria
 Style, Reliability, Fuel-economy

 Alternatives
 Civic Coupe, Saturn Coupe, Ford Escort, Mazda Miata

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Weights and Scores

Weight 0.3 0.4 0.3 Total

Style Reliability Fuel Eco.
Civic 7 9 9 8.4
Saturn 8 7 8 7.6
Ford 9 6 8 7.5
Mazda 6 7 8 7.0

Conclusion: Select Civic

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SMART (Simple Multi-attributed Rating

Technique)
4. Alternatives-objectives score card – displaying a matrix of alternatives
vs. objectives (attributes) together with numbers and/or other symbols to
represent how well each alternative meets each objective.

As an example, suppose that there are four alternative bridge designs to

be compared on the basis of the three attributes used in the example
above. The figure below shows a typical “score card” display. Using such a
display, the decision maker should be aided in making his selection
according to his subjective (usually nonquantified) feelings about the
relative importance of the various attributes and the corresponding
measures and/or relative indications of desirability for each alternative.
No further quantification is necessary before a choice may be made.
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Group Activity
 1 whole sheet of paper, write the name of the group members and
indicate whether present or absent
 Project Title and List of alternatives

 Task 1: List down the possible attributes (including cost/economic

worth) that need to be considered in your Eng’g Economic
Analysis. How does each of your alternative fare for each
attribute? (i.e. best, better, disadvantage etc., kahit wala pang
values)
 Task 2: Draw the possible cash flow diagrams of your alternatives.
Identify the different specific costs. (Kahit wala pang values,
hopefully may study period na)
 Where/How will you obtain data for cost analysis and SMART?

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
THANK YOU!
mddiola

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