Tradeoff Decisions in System Design

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.

“This book provides an excellent road map for designing and producing competitive products.”