Clarifying the debate on selection methods for engineering: Arrow’s impossibility theorem, design performances, and information basis

Jacobs, Johannes F.; Poel, Ibo van de; Osseweijer, Patrícia

doi:10.1007/s00163-013-0160-6

Cited by 15 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In addition to the coherence/correspondence dichotomy, Jacobs, van de Poel & Osseweijer (2014) recognized several additional issues that cloud the discussion. These additional issues are the need for researchers to indicate whether they are addressing the aggregation of individuals' preference or of performance metrics, and the need to express what sort of information researchers assume is available for an aggregation procedure (specifically with respect to measurability and comparability) (Jacobs et al 2014). With respect to the first issue raised by Jacobs et al, this work addresses the aggregation of preferences expressed by individuals, not the aggregation of disparate performance criteria.…”

Section: The Role Of Social Choice In Engineering Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impossible by design? Fairness, strategy, and Arrow’s impossibility theorem

2017

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The design process often requires work by teams, rather than individuals. During team based design it is likely that situations will arise in which individual members of the team have different opinions, yet a group decision must still be made. Unfortunately, Arrow's impossibility theorem indicates that there is no method for aggregating group preferences that will always satisfy a small number of 'fair' conditions. This work seeks to identify methods of combining individual preferences that can come close to satisfying Arrow's conditions, enabling decisions that are fairer in practice. First, experiential conjoint analysis was used to obtain individual empirical utility functions for drinking mug designs. Each empirical utility function represented individual members who were part of a design team. Then, a number of functions for constructing group preference were analysed using both randomly generated preferences and empirical preferences derived from the experiential conjoint survey. The analysis involved checking each of Arrow's conditions, as well as assessing the potential impact of strategic voting. Based on the results, methods that should be used to aggregate group preference within a design team in practice were identified and recommended.

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Section: The Role Of Social Choice In Engineering Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impossible by design? Fairness, strategy, and Arrow’s impossibility theorem

2017

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“…Ignoring the BC and therefore still troubled by the potential impact of Arrow's impossibility theorem, Jacobs et al . () recast the latter ‘into an Arrowian type of impossibility theorem for performance aggregation in engineering design’ (Jacobs et al ., , p. 6). Among the five conditions adapted is independence of irrelevant concepts, the troublesome property that can prevent the social outcome from being transitive.…”

Section: Review Of Selected Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, subsequent work has not taken into account Saari's result. Despite the extensive work of Saari (, , , , , , ) and Saari and Sieberg (), much of the engineering design community has not yet recognized the unique advantages of the BC in overcoming the obstacles identified by Hazelrigg (see, for example, Li and Yang, ; See and Lewis, ; Franssen, ; Bernroider and Mitlöhner, ; Jacobs et al ., ). Notable exceptions include Dym et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Deflecting Arrow by Aggregating Rankings of Multiple Correlated Criteria According to Borda

Hulkower

Neatrour²

2016

Multi Criteria Decision Anal

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This paper has two objectives. The first is to review and address concerns raised by Hazelrigg that Arrow's impossibility theorem prevents the selection of rational aggregation methods for use in engineering trade studies. In addressing these concerns, the work of Saari is cited to establish the fact that the Borda count is the only 'non-dictatorial' positional voting method that satisfies the criteria for a rational decision procedure while using complete information. Hence, the resulting rank ordering of the alternatives is the most reliable outcome. Several previous studies that use other aggregation methods are critiqued, and Borda is applied to examples to illustrate the differences in the outcomes. The second objective is to extend the applicability of Borda to include attributes such as cost, schedule duration, and certain technical and performance measures that are generally more reasonably described as correlated random variables. Exact Probabilities by Simulation with Borda, a method introduced by Hulkower that improves a technique by Book for determining which candidate in a trade study is the probable lowest-cost alternative, is generalized to include multiple correlated criteria, each of which is expressed as a random variable and thus incorporates probabilistic uncertainty.

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“…Alongside this, a passionate debate on the effects of the Arrow's impossibility theorem in engineering design is still going on (Arrow 2012;Reich 2010;Hazelrigg 1996Hazelrigg , 1999Hazelrigg , 2010Scott and Antonsson 1999;Franssen 2005;Yeo et al 2004;McComb et al 2017). In short, this theorem establishes the impossibility of a generic aggregation model to provide a collective ranking that always satisfies several desirable properties, also known as fairness criteria, i.e., unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA), weak monotonicity, and Pareto efficiency (Arrow 2012;Fishburn 1973a;Nisan et al 2007;Saari 2011;Saari and Sieberg 2004;Franssen 2005;Jacobs et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Aggregating multiple ordinal rankings in engineering design: the best model according to the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance

Franceschini

Maisano

2020

Res Eng Design

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Aggregating the preferences of a group of experts is a recurring problem in several fields, including engineering design; in a nutshell, each expert formulates an ordinal ranking of a set of alternatives and the resulting rankings should be aggregated into a collective one. Many aggregation models have been proposed in the literature, showing strengths and weaknesses, in line with the implications of Arrow's impossibility theorem. Furthermore, the coherence of the collective ranking with respect to the expert rankings may change depending on: (i) the expert rankings themselves and (ii) the aggregation model adopted. This paper assesses this coherence for a variety of aggregation models, through a recent test based on the Kendall's coefficient of concordance (W), and studies the characteristics of those models that are most likely to achieve higher coherence. Interestingly, the so-called Borda count model often provides best coherence, with some exceptions in the case of collective rankings with ties. The description is supported by practical examples.

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Clarifying the debate on selection methods for engineering: Arrow’s impossibility theorem, design performances, and information basis

Cited by 15 publications

References 29 publications

Impossible by design? Fairness, strategy, and Arrow’s impossibility theorem

Impossible by design? Fairness, strategy, and Arrow’s impossibility theorem

Deflecting Arrow by Aggregating Rankings of Multiple Correlated Criteria According to Borda

Aggregating multiple ordinal rankings in engineering design: the best model according to the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance

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