Product and Process Survey and Analysis

Project Managers:
Carol Amos, (302) 999-6365 or carol.b.amos@usa.dupont.com

Overview

This project is identifying and evaluating decision-modeling products for use in making decisions identified by Element 1: Scenario-based Project Planning of the Capital Projects Technology Roadmap with project-specific knowledge of the variables listed within the Potential Barriers and Challenges section.

Project Participants

• Autodesk, Tim Gray
• CH2M HILL, Andrew Phillip
• DuPont, Carol Amos, Richard Lopez & Nancy Hough
• The Dow Chemical Company, Sylvia Rappenecker, Matt Morrison
• Fluor, Gary Chanko

Project Status

This project began in the summer of 2005 and is estimated to be completed within 12 months.

Business Case

Purpose

To identify and evaluate commercially available decision modeling products that are capable of analyzing the particular complex nature of facilities and the interrelated variables. A second purpose of the evaluation is to decide if commercially-available models are adequate to meet our objectives or if additional development of decision models for this type of situation is needed.

Business Drivers

Identifying commercially available tools is the first step in a cost benefit analysis to decide if purchasing an existing tool is preferred over researching and developing a new tool.

Project Activities

1. Define the necessary Roadmap project control plans, including charter, schedule and project plan, resourcing plan (in terms of skill sets and work hours), communication plan, financial plan, etc.).
2. Staff and initiate the project.
3. Identify published research on evaluations of existing commercial decision modeling products, published processes and comparative studies for analyzing complex interrelated system variables.
4. Search for expertise that could be applied to the capital projects industry while casting a broad net to look for research related to making decisions in complex systems.
5. Compile a summary report of the available models and relevant published research including a recommendation on further work needed to complete the objectives of this project.
6. Develop a procedure for evaluating the commercially available decision modeling software that includes use of the software to be evaluated.
7. Identify and survey the available commercial software and prepare a list of candidates for evaluation and testing.
8. Establish evaluation criteria for the decision modeling software.
9. Evaluate the decision modeling software and recommend leading candidates for testing.
10. Test the recommended decision modeling software.
11. Prepare a report of the testing results compared to the evaluation criteria including recommendations and a path forward. Make specific recommendations regarding the need and priority for Project #2 that would prepare a product specification for the next generation decision modeling software with enhanced features to better meet the needs of the capital projects industry.

Note: A listing of decision science organizations and decision modeling software is presented at groups.msn.com/DecisionModeling/yourwebpage1.msnw and from the Decision System Laboratory of the University of Pittsburgh at www.sis.pitt.edu/~dsl/software.htm. An example of a comparative analysis is the Trade-Off Analysis Planning and Procedures Guidebook prepared for the U.S. Army Institute for Water Resources Decision Methodologies Division, April 2002 IWR 02-R-2 at www.iwr.usace.army.mil/iwr/pdf/tradeoff.pdf.

Project Deliverable

• Report of the available models and relevant published research including a recommendation on further work needed to complete the objectives of this project.
• A procedure for evaluating the commercially available decision modeling software products.
• A list of candidate products proposed for evaluation and testing.
• Report of the testing results compared to the evaluation criteria including recommendations and a path forward.

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