Stochastic Expert Choice in Ship Production Project Management

Abstract

Increasingly rapid and often radical changes in both ship design as well as ship production process technology require more frequent selection from among many alternative technologies and operational strategies under conditions of uncertainty. A stochastic time variant hierarchical decision process, or expert choice method, is proposed for use under such conditions. Such an approach is particularly relevant to ship production because here technical decisions usually involve large investments, changes in production or operations, and often imply or affect strategic change. Expert choice, or the analytic hierarchical process (AHP), offers an approach which allows consideration of all the factors, as well as the risk attitudes of the decision-makers and others involved. The basic AHP method was modified to permit consideration of the probabilities associated with hierarchical relationships of factors and decision-makers. AHP is further suggested to include the effect of time on the determination of the risk, and time dependence of the outcome of alternative decisions. Thereby AHP permits determination of not only the most effective choices, but also timing of complex decisions met so frequently in ship production project management.