Group-analytic network process for balancing stakeholder views on fire protection of steel-framed buildings

Abstract

To select appropriate fire protection options for buildings during their design stage, economic, safety, environmental, and societal criteria need to be accounted for. The divergent and sometimes conflictual desires from different fire design stakeholders involved in the process present a multicriteria decision problem. Design decision criteria and fire protection options can be interdependent, and so there is a need to manage these desires with an advanced decision analysis technique, thereby reducing uncertainties in the complex decision-making process.The aim of this paper is to use the weighted/geometric mean method-analytic network process (W/GMM-ANP) to balance the opinions of fire design stakeholders extracted from 42 structured stakeholder interviews on selecting the most suitable fire protection option for buildings constructed of steel frames. Different categories of interdependent decision elements were developed from 22 design decision criteria and 5 proposed fire protection options to produce a network of decision clusters for multicriteria decision analysis. In the synthesis and ranking of fire protection options, the W/GMM-ANP accounted for the multiple interdependencies of weighted and unweighted stakeholder desires and managed the complexity of the decision-making problem. The technique is proposed for approaching suitable group decisions in structural fire design of steel-framed buildings as well as other performance-based engineering decision making that may involve multidisciplinary stakeholders. KEYWORDSfire protection options, group decision making, multicriteria decision analysis, stakeholder views, steel-framed buildings, weighted/geometric mean method-analytic network process (W/GMM-ANP) | INTRODUCTIONFire safety is one of the fundamental necessities in the design and construction of buildings and other infrastructural facilities, with the aim to reduce to an acceptable risk level the loss of life, property, and environmental damage (Buchanan, 2001).This entails the determination of the fire risk levels (i.e., likelihood and impact of fire) at the initial design stage before deciding the means of achieving safety. Modern facets of fire safety in buildings include preventing fire ignition through fire risk management, fire detection and provision of warning to building occupants, provision of adequate escape routes, fire growth and spread management, enhancing firefighting operations, and averting building collapse (Yung, 2008). In cases of controllable or slowly growing fires, these fire safety goals can be achieved through timely detection and suppression with automatic sprinklers. However, during a severe or fast growing fire, the control of fire spread, protection of adjacent buildings, and prevention of building collapse will necessitate fire resistance of structures and fire barriers (Buchanan, 2001). In this case, the fire is resisted with passive protection measures, which are systems that are built into the structure and fabric of buildings.Building designs for fire safety...

Consistency-Based Multi-Criteria Group Decision-Making for Fire Station Staffing

“…Since TCRij is a negative criterion (i.e., less is better), higher weights should be given to fire chiefs with lower TCRij values. In this paper, we propose a new linear novel weighting scheme specified by equation (2).As far as we know, this weighting method has not been used before in previous literature. This method assigns a weight to each fire chief which is the sum of the TCRij scores of the other fire chiefs.…”

“…Next, the sum of all consistency ratios of each fire chief for each decision (TCRij) is calculated using equation (1). Subsequently, the Perfect Judgment Index Pijis calculated using equation (2). Logically, the higher the value of Pij, the more consistent a decision-maker is for a given decision.…”