First Priority, an expert system for prioritizing

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5805637

Morton, G R; Hopson, P C

Prioritizing lists of diverse entities such as projects, tasks, documents, recommendations or physical locations is a necessary part of business at DOE facilities. A key issue is whether or not this necessary and problematic activity of prioritizing is performed in a methodical, defensible and traceable manner, especially when the goals are hard to compare and measure. Sound methods of prioritizing are often not employed because of their complexity or difficulty in implementation. To overcome these problems, WSRC is developing an expert system. First Priority, which will provide individuals or committees a comprehensive process for prioritizing lists of any sort. A set of windows, editors, and pull-down menus guide the user in building and modifying an (inverted) weighted tree structure which represents the goals the prioritization is to advance. The process of building this structure is divided into four stages which are generally followed in order. These stages are: building the goal tree, ordering the goal tree nodes, weighting the goal tree nodes, and designing measurement methods for each leaf node. Based on the resultant structure an evaluation module is generated to evaluate the items of the list. This list is then prioritized and grouped into user-defined categories, taking into account cost or other resources. Additional First Priority tools provide sensitivity analysis, graphical displays of data, and reporting.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Savannah River Co., Aiken, SC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-89SR18035
• OSTI ID: 5805637
• Report Number(s): WSRC-MS-91-445; CONF-9110341--1; ON: DE92009424
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990100 -- Management
990200* -- Mathematics & Computers
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
COMPUTER CODES
DECISION MAKING
DECISION TREE ANALYSIS
F CODES
MANAGEMENT
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PLANNING
PROGRAMMING
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS