R&D concept decision analysis: Using alternate futures for sensitivity analysis

Abstract

The time from identification of new research and development (R&D) concepts to deployment as military weapon systems is 10–25 years. Significant uncertainties exist about future political military states of the world and the value of these future systems may depend on which state(s) of the world eventually occur. Multi-objective decision analysis can be used to evaluate the future contribution of R&D concepts to military objectives. Scenarios (or alternate futures) are a key decision analysis technique to examine the uncertain future. The standard approach to uncertainty is to identify mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive outcomes and assign probabilities to each outcome. Unfortunately, the descriptions of possible futures are seldom collectively exhaustive. A sensitivity analysis approach is developed using different multi-objective weights for each of several alternate futures. Sensitivity analysis is performed to identify the R&D concepts that are the most robust across the alternate futures. This sensitivity analysis approach has been successfully used on two major studies, SPACECAST 2020 and Air Force 2025. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.