An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation process is a complex programming initiative with an overabundance of influencing factors that can shape its success. This paper has 2 objectives to: (I) use simple project management tools and techniques to restructure the implementation process in order to reduce the complexity (II) build a stable model that will be largely insensitive to minor perturbations.The 28 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) used in this model are partitioned into 5 special groups called roles. The restriction of the interactions to within roles resulted in a reduction of pairwise comparisons between CSFs from 378 in the unstructured process to 79 in the model. Pairwise comparisons are a measure of complexity. In addition, the rate of change of pairwise comparisons reduced from 29 in the unstructured process to a maximum of 9 and as low as 5 in the model.

The authors describe a decision and risk analysis performed for the cleanup of a large Department of Energy mixed-waste subsurface disposal area governed by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). In a previous study, the authors worked with the site decision makers, state regulators, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional regulators to develop a CERCLA-based multiobjective decision analysis value model and used the model to perform a screening analysis of 28 remedial alternatives. The analysis results identified an innovative technology, in situ vitrification, with high effectiveness versus cost. Since this technology had not been used on this scale before, the major uncertainties were contaminant migration and pressure buildup. Pressure buildup was a safety concern due to the potential risks to worker safety. With the help of environmental technology experts remedial alternative changes were identified to mitigate the concerns about contaminant migration and pressure buildup. The analysis results showed that the probability of an event with a risk to worker safety had been significantly reduced. Based on these results, site decision makers have refocused their test program to examine in situ vitrification and have continued the use of the CERCLA-based decision analysis methodology to analyze remedial alternatives.

This paper has two objectives; to come up with a set of attributes that can be used to measure presidential aspirants in a democratic governance system, and to co-opt the attributes so assembled into a mathematical model that can be used to compute the best candidate among a myriad of competing alternatives. The model will have as inputs multiple and disparate criteria which will need to be transformed into dimensionless utilities for meaningful comparisons. The paper espouses why Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), with its variants of MAUT, MAVT and AHP is an appropriate tool to use to accomplish such a task. Constructed piecewise linear functions were used instead of linear Likert scales for better accuracy.

The purpose is to compare internet prices of the nation's Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with the aim of ranking them to find out the low cost leaders in the industry. Generally the local ISPs employ the strategy of volume-tiered pricing. Volume-tiered strategies exhibit greater complexity in pricing, more opaque prices and sometimes, even higher prices. The advantage of volume-based pricing for operators is that the uncertainty and risk of consumption remains with the customer, rather than the operator. In addition the ISPs offer disparate data volumes and price points with many of them unique so as to perhaps discourage direct comparisons with one another. This paper overcame the issue of complexity, opacity and the dissimilarities in data offerings by fitting regression functions to the data of the competing ISPs and examining the behaviors of the generated graphs across a broad range. The study clearly identified the low cost leaders in the local ISP industry. Currently there is no national ranking system to find out the relative placements of the ISPs in their various service offerings. The contribution represents one of the first times internet service prices in the country have been analytically studied to identify the ISPs with the best prices.

Purpose The rising proportion of internet users in Sub-Saharan Africa and the lack of analytical techniques, as decision support systems, in choosing among alternative internet service providers (ISPs) by consumers underpin this study. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach for evaluating high-speed internet service offered by ISPs in a sub-Saharan African country. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample size of 150, pairwise comparisons of two ISPs along five criteria of cost, usability, support, reliability and speed were performed by ten person groups of university students working in various organizations in Ghana and undertaking an online Six Sigma Course. Geometric means were employed to aggregate the scores in 15 groups, and these scores were then normalized and used as input into an analytical hierarchy process grid. Findings The results show that consumers of internet services highly emphasize the cost attribute of internet provision in their decision making. On the other hand, it was realized that consumers least emphasize the support provided by ISPs in their decision making among alternative ISPs. Originality/value This study has sought to provide an analytical framework for assessing the quality of service provided by alternative ISPs in a developing economy’s context. The evaluating criteria in this framework also reveal the key consumer requirements in internet service provision in a developing economy’s environment. This, to a large extent, will inform the marketing strategies of existing ISPs in Ghana as well as prospective ones intending to enter the Ghanaian market. Besides, the National Communication Authority, a regulator of communication services provision in Ghana, will be informed about the performances of the ISPs along five performance criteria. This is expected to aid in their regulatory functions.