Enabling Collaborative Decision Making through Applied Systems Engineering Tools, Methods, and Processes

Abstract

Increasingly complex problems involved in systems development drive systems engineers to develop novel decision making processes. The breadth of complex problems demands the interaction of various stakeholders, including both decision makers and subject matter experts, each focusing on specific areas but all addressing a higher level common cause. The process brought forth in this tutorial integrates a series of methods, some widely accepted and others which are novel in nature, in order to enable a collaborative process for technology selection. Quality Function Deployment is used to capture customer desires and focus engineering level requirements. Multi‐Attribute Decision Making is used to identify system configurations when multiple and competing objectives exist, which is a situation where traditional system optimization struggles. System modeling is a necessary step to analyze and understand the impact of various systems options. This seminar therefore introduces the process of surrogate modeling in order to rapidly access elements of modeling and simulation, a necessary step to analyze system options. The very integration of these applied systems engineering methods enables collaborative decision making throughout system development. A proof of concept is presented where each of these methods is applied in the technology selection portfolio analysis of renewable energy system options for a remote off‐grid site.