Theoretical Foundations for Preference Representation in Systems Engineering
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Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
2
Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Systems 2019, 7(4), 55; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/systems7040055
Received: 8 November 2019
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Revised: 8 December 2019
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Accepted: 10 December 2019
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Published: 12 December 2019
(This article belongs to the Collection Systems Engineering)
The realization of large-scale complex engineered systems is contingent upon satisfaction of the preferences of the stakeholder. With numerous decisions being involved in all the aspects of the system lifecycle, from conception to disposal, it is critical to have an explicit and rigorous representation of stakeholder preferences to be communicated to key personnel in the organizational hierarchy. Past work on stakeholder preference representation and communication in systems engineering has been primarily requirement-driven. More recent value-based approaches still do not offer a rigorous framework on how to represent stakeholder preferences but assume that an overarching value function that can precisely capture stakeholder preferences exists. This article provides a formalism based on modal preference logic to aid in rigorous representation and communication of stakeholder preferences. Formal definitions for the different types of stakeholder preferences encountered in a systems engineering context are provided in addition to multiple theorems that improve the understanding of the relationship between stakeholder preferences and the solution space.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Kannan, H.; Bhatia, G.V.; Mesmer, B.L.; Jantzen, B. Theoretical Foundations for Preference Representation in Systems Engineering. Systems 2019, 7, 55. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/systems7040055
AMA Style
Kannan H, Bhatia GV, Mesmer BL, Jantzen B. Theoretical Foundations for Preference Representation in Systems Engineering. Systems. 2019; 7(4):55. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/systems7040055
Chicago/Turabian StyleKannan, Hanumanthrao, Garima V. Bhatia, Bryan L. Mesmer, and Benjamin Jantzen. 2019. "Theoretical Foundations for Preference Representation in Systems Engineering" Systems 7, no. 4: 55. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/systems7040055
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