Több szempontú részvételi döntések a fenntarthatósági értékelésekben. A legnépszerűbb módszerek összehasonlítása = Participatory multi-criteria decision analysis. A comparison of methodologies

A fenntarthatóság értékelése definíciószerűen többdimenziós probléma. A megfelelő alternatíva, forgatókönyv, eljárás stb. kiválasztásakor ugyanis a döntéshozóknak egyszerre kell figyelembe venniük környezetvédelmi, gazdasági és társadalmi szempontokat. Az ilyen döntéseket alátámaszthatják a több szempontú döntéshozatali modellek. A tanulmány a több szempontú döntési eljárások közül a legfontosabb hétnek az alkalmazhatóságát vizsgálja részvételi körülmények között. Az utóbbi évek e témában publikált esettanulmányainak áttekintésével megállapítható, hogy egyik módszer sem uralja a többit, azok különböző feltételek mellett eltérő sikerrel használhatók. Ennek ellenére a különböző módszerek kombinációjával végrehajthatunk olyan eljárásokat, amelyekkel az egyes módszerek előnyeit még jobban kiaknázhatjuk. ________ Measuring and comparing the sustainability of certain actions, scenarios, technologies, etc. is by definition a multidimensional problem. Decision-makers must consider environmental, economic and social aspects when choosing an alternative course of action. Such decisions can be aided by multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). This paper investigates seven different MCDA methodologies: MAU, the Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP), the ELECTRE, PROMETHEE, REGIME, and NAIADE methods, and "Ideal and reference point" approaches). It is based on a series of reports in which over 30 real-world case studies focusing on participatory MCDA were reviewed. It is stressed, however, that there is no "best" choice in the list of MCDA techniques. Some methods fit certain decision problems better than others. Nonetheless, some complementary benefits of the different techniques can be exploited by combining these methodologies.

Többszempontú részvételi döntések a fenntarthatósági értékelésekben. A legnépszerűbb módszerek összehasonlítása

Egyes alternatívák, forgatókönyvek, technológiák stb. fenntarthatóságának értékelése – definíciószerűen többdimenziós probléma. A megfelelő alternatíva kiválasztásánál ugyanis a döntéshozóknak egyszerre kell figyelembe venniük környezetvédelmi, gazdasági és társadalmi szempontokat. Az ilyen döntéseket támogathatják többszempontú döntéshozatali modellek. A tanulmány hét többszempontú döntési módszertan (MAU, AHP, ELECTRE, PROMETHEE, REGIME, NAIADE és ideális-referencia pont) alkalmazhatóságát vizsgálja részvételi körülmények között. Az utóbbi évek e témában publikált esettanulmányait áttekintve megállapítható, hogy egyik módszer sem dominálja a többit, azok különböző feltételek mellett eltérő sikerrel használhatók. Ennek ellenére a különböző technikák kombinációjával előállíthatunk olyan eljárásokat, melyekkel az egyes módszerek előnyeit még jobban kiaknázhatjuk. ________ Measuring and comparing the sustainability of certain actions, scenarios, technologies, etc. – by definition – is a multidimensional problem. Decision makers must consider environmental, economic and social aspects when choosing an alternative course of action. Such decisions can be aided by multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). In this paper participatory seven different MCDA methodologies are investigated (MAU, the Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP), the ELECTRE, PROMETHEE, REGIME, and NAIADE methods and the “Ideal and reference point” approaches). It is based on a series of reports, in which more than 30 real world case studies focusing on participatory MCDA were reviewed. It is emphasized that there is no “best” choice from the list of MCDA techniques, but some methods fit certain decision problems more than others. However, with the combination of these methodologies some complementary benefits of the different techniques can be exploited.

Decision support system for production control: Multiple criteria decision making in practice

This paper presents a development of decision support systems for solving scheduling problems. It consists of two parts — the first describing the production processes which can be handled by the system and the second describing how the system works.

On pairwise comparison matrices that can be made consistent by the modification of a few elements

Pairwise comparison matrices are often used in Multi-attribute Decision Making forweighting the attributes or for the evaluation of the alternatives with respect to a criteria. Matrices provided by the decision makers are rarely consistent and it is important to index the degree of inconsistency. In the paper, the minimal number of matrix elements by the modification of which the pairwise comparison matrix can be made consistent is examined. From practical point of view, the modification of 1, 2, or, for larger matrices, 3 elements seems to be relevant. These cases are characterized by using the graph representation of the matrices. Empirical examples illustrate that pairwise comparison matrices that can be made consistent by the modification of a few elements are present in the applications.

Inventory investment and GDP characteristics in OECD countries

There are very few research studies on macroeconomic inventory behaviour of various countries. It is clear that macro inventories are the results of a large number of individual microdecisions. However, we believe that it is worth analysing how inventories develop in the individual countries and why we can see different tendencies. This paper is the newest piece in a series of studies on the above subject. We use the OECD database to analyse inventory trends between 1987 and 2004 in nine of the most developed economies of the world. Annual inventory investment data are used and their connections with other components of GDP expenditure (governmental and private consumption, investment in fixed assets and foreign trade balance as well as the annual growth rate of GDP) are examined by multi-variable statistical analysis. Conclusions include the steadily decreasing tendency of inventory fluctuations, the varying periods of higher and lower rates of inventory investments and the differences of main influencing factors by country.

Computer aided licence selection

A model of multiple criteria decision making is presented for selecting the “best” of a finite number of alternatives. Techniques of scoring the alternatives and weighting the criteria are combined with different evaluating procedures and amalgamated in an interactive algorithm. Application of this method for choosing the best tender in a competitive bidding is discussed and a case is presented in some detail.

On optimal completions of incomplete pairwise comparison matrices

An important variant of a key problem for multi-attribute decision making is considered. We study the extension of the pairwise comparison matrix to the case when only partial information is available: for some pairs no comparison is given. It is natural to define the inconsistency of a partially filled matrix as the inconsistency of its best, completely filled completion. We study here the uniqueness problem of the best completion for two weighting methods, the Eigen-vector Method and the Logarithmic Least Squares Method. In both settings we obtain the same simple graph theoretic characterization of the uniqueness. The optimal completion will be unique if and only if the graph associated with the partially defined matrix is connected. Some numerical experiences are discussed at the end of the paper.

A method for solving LSM problems of small size in the AHP

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one of the most popular methods used in Multi-Attribute Decision Making. It provides with ratio-scale measurements of the prioirities of elements on the various leveles of a hierarchy. These priorities are obtained through the pairwise comparisons of elements on one level with reference to each element on the immediate higher level. The Eigenvector Method (EM) and some distance minimizing methods such as the Least Squares Method (LSM), Logarithmic Least Squares Method (LLSM), Weighted Least Squares Method (WLSM) and Chi Squares Method (X2M) are of the tools for computing the priorities of the alternatives. This paper studies a method for generating all the solutions of the LSM problems for 3 × 3 matrices. We observe non-uniqueness and rank reversals by presenting numerical results.

Solving the Least Squares Method problem in the AHP for 3 X 3 and 4 X 4 matrices

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one of the most popular methods used in Multi-Attribute Decision Making. The Eigenvector Method (EM) and some distance minimizing methods such as the Least Squares Method (LSM) are of the possible tools for computing the priorities of the alternatives. A method for generating all the solutions of the LSM problem for 3 × 3 and 4 × 4 matrices is discussed in the paper. Our algorithms are based on the theory of resultants.