A generic multi-attribute analysis system

This paper describes a generic decision support system based on an additive multiattribute utility model that is intended to allay many of the operational difficulties involved in the multicriteria decision-making process. The system accounts for uncertainty about the alternative consequences and admits incomplete information about the decision-makers’ preferences, which leads to classes of utility functions and weight intervals. The additive model is used to assess, on the one hand, average overall utilities, on which the ranking of alternatives is based and, on the other, minimum and maximum overall utilities, which give further insight into the robustness of this ranking. When the information obtained is not meaningful enough so as to definitively recommend an alternative, an iteration process can be carried out by tightening the imprecise parameters and assessing the non-dominated and potentially optimal alternatives or using Monte Carlo simulation techniques to determine useful information about dominance among the alternatives.