Tradeoff Decisions in System Design [Hardcover]

This textbook is about three key aspects of system design: decision making under uncertainty, trade-off studies and formal risk analyses. Recognizing that the mathematical treatment of these topics is similar, the authors generalize existing mathematical techniques to cover all three areas. Common to these topics are importance weights, combining functions, scoring functions, quantitative metrics, prioritization and sensitivity analyses. Furthermore, human decision-making activities and problems use these same tools. Therefore, these problems are also treated uniformly and modeled using prospect theory. Aimed at both engineering and business practitioners and students interested in systems engineering, risk analysis, operational management, and business process modeling, Tradeoff Decisions in System Design explains how humans can overcome cognitive biases and avoid mental errors when conducting trade-off studies and risk analyses in a wide range of domains. With generous use of examples as a common thread across chapters this book.System Design and the Design Process.- Decisions and Mistakes.- Common Methods and Processes.- Discovering System Requirements.- Tradeoff Studies.- Risk Analysis and Management.- Comparing Four Processes.

Dr. Terry Bahill is Professor Emeritus of Systems and Industrial Engineering at the University of Arizona, Tucson and the author of six engineering books and 250 papers. Dr. Bahill has worked with dozens of technical companies presenting seminars on systems engineering and advising system development teams on description of their systems engineering processes. An elected Fellow of the IEEE, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE)and of the AAAS, his research interests are in the fields of system design, modeling physiololÓ`