Assessing and Visualizing Incomparabilities by using an Outranking Method Supporting the Acquisition of Military Equipment

An essential element in the use of outranking methods for ranking or selection problems arising in the acquisition process of military equipment is the interpretation of incomparabilities. We show how this was done in the PROMETHEE methods by the “GAIA” plane representation, which is implemented in the commercial software “DECISION LAB 2000”. We then discuss how the incomparability analysis can be fine-tuned, leading to a more detailed graphical representation. This was implemented in the “MCDMTool” developed at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels. Finally we discuss the way to interpret the results of these assessments and visualizations, along with their relevance to the acquisition process of military equipment. INTRODUCTION In the SAS-080 (NATO SAS-080 Specialist Meeting – Brussels 22-23 October 2009) contribution on “Using an outranking method supporting the acquisition of military equipment” (SAS-080 14) we reminded that outranking methods for multicriteria decision aid belong typically to the so-called European School of Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM), which came into existence with the stimulating work of B. Roy ([13],[14],[15],[16]). We will repeat here some of the points addressed in that paper. The outranking approach is based on a fundamental partial comparability axiom where incomparability is a key concept ([5], p.80). In contrast with this approach there is the so-called American School in which Th. Saaty plays an important role with his “Analytical Hierarchy Process” (AHP Method) in which there is no place for incomparabilities [17]. In the European School we think that incomparabilities between alternatives to be ranked or to be selected, are a natural aspect of any MCDM problem, in which criteria evaluating the performance of these alternatives are conflicting – meaning that for instance two different criteria can have inversed preferences between couples of the same alternatives. If this happens on a large set of couples of criteria, then we claim that neglecting these conflicts, is leading to decisions which are often far from the original data of the MCDM problem. Although the final objective in practice is to decide about a ranking or about a selection of a subset of the alternatives, we claim that the decision maker should be supported by methods which are warning about the presence of incomparabilities. We even claim that it should be possible to assess the importance (the intensity) of these incomparibilities in order to fully inform the decision maker about it, before the final decision is made. Many different methods belong to the outranking class. For overviews we refer to [5], [18] and [19]. For a detailed description of industrial applications with the oldest member (ELECTRE) of this class we refer to [11]. In this paper we will concentrate on the well-known PROMETHEE methods. In other contributions Report Documentation Page Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. 1. REPORT DATE OCT 2009 2. REPORT TYPE N/A 3. DATES COVERED 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Assessing and Visualizing Incomparabilities by using an Outranking Method Supporting the Acquisition of Military Equipment 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) Royal Military Academy Renaissance Avenue 3