Gregory S. Parnell

University of Arkansas | U of A · Department of Industrial Engineering

Large-scale, Internet of Things projects often require significant change and adaptation in the project life cycle. This creates complexity when trying to effectively communicate information among multiple teams contributing to and interfacing within a project. This project uses agile project management and development while creating smart base sof...

Strategic problem‐solving enables organizations to pursue opportunities and address emerging threats proactively. However, traditional problem‐solving methods often rely on business processes and organizational procedures, which may not be available at the strategic level. This article investigates potential gaps in strategic problem‐solving method...

Army installation commanders need timely weather information to make installation closure decisions before or during adverse weather events (e.g., hail, thunderstorms, snow, and floods). We worked with the military installation in Fort Carson, CO, and used their Weather Warning, Watch, and Advisory (WWA) criteria list to establish the foundation fo...

System design is an exercise in sequential decision-making, with the objective of developing resilient and affordable systems. Throughout the design process, engineering and program managers must balance several competing objectives, such as ensuring design feasibility, minimizing cost, schedule, and performance risk, while simultaneously achieving...

Smart cities are rapidly evolving concept-transforming urban developments in the 21st century. Smart cities use advanced technologies and data analytics to improve the quality of life for their citizens, increase the efficiency of infrastructure and services, and promote sustainable economic growth. Smart cities integrate multiple domains, includin...

Emergency telecommunication infrastructure is essential for residents and emergency responders during natural disasters to coordinate life-saving and life-preserving efforts. Ensuring resilience of the emergency telecommunication infrastructure is of critical importance for regions with an increased likelihood of natural disasters. We developed an...

System reliability is treated as a parameter and not modeled in the early concept design stages. We illustrate a reliability model for system reliability in early concept design using knowledge from similar systems, technology readiness levels (TRL), and functional analysis methods using an unmanned ground vehicle. We integrate the reliability mode...

Systems engineering overlaps with many fields, such as industrial engineering, engineering management, operations research, project management, and design engineering. In fact, the main industrial engineering body of knowledge, the Industrial and Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge, includes systems in the title and includes a section on systems...

This research focuses on developing models to estimate the system reliability of Unmanned Ground Vehicles using knowledge and data from similar systems. Reliability is often a stand‐alone requirement and not always fully included in performance and life cycle cost models. Traditional reliability approaches require detailed knowledge of a system and...

This chapter examines the use of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) tools to perform trade-off analysis of alternative systems decisions throughout the system life cycle. Specially, we seek integrated models that automate the simultaneous evaluation of the performance, effectiveness, stakeholder value, and cost of multiple alternative system de...

This paper identifies best practices for stakeholder engagement for Research & Development (R&D) organizations, describes findings, and makes recommendations. We identify 106 best practices for stakeholder engagement, which came from 19 sources, including corporate publications, governmental sources, standards organizations, and other similar organ...

Increasing system complexity has been a driving force for the development of systems engineering methodologies. One of these methodologies is a concurrent engineering process known as set-based design (SBD). In support of ongoing SBD research, our team conducted a structured literature review to ascertain the current state of SBD research. This pap...

Increasing system complexity requires that engineers, systems analysts, and program managers use comprehensive design methodologies to deliver affordable and resilient designs. One method is set-based design (SBD), a product development and managerial process distinctly suited for developing complex systems under uncertainty. SBD simultaneously dev...

Engineering complex systems is an exercise in sequential multiobjective decision making under uncertainty. One method for handling this complexity and uncertainty is set-based design (SBD). SBD is a concurrent engineering and management methodology that develops, analyzes, and matures numerous design options, reducing risk and delivering higher val...

This paper examines the potential to use Model‐Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tools to perform trade‐off analysis of alternative systems decisions in the system life cycle from the concept stage to the retirement stage. Specially, we searched for integrated models that automate the simultaneous evaluation of the performance, effectiveness, stakeh...

System design and engineering involves making decisions involving multiple stakeholders with diverse and, potentially conflicting, objectives. As more and more data become available with digital engineering, big data, and data science, trade‐off analytics will be an increasing important tool for engineers. We used a structured literature survey wit...

Engineering managers work with system designers, system operators, and stakeholders who value the system's performance and seek to deliver stakeholder value. Engineering resilient systems is an emerging research field since all systems face future uncertainties including new missions, new requirements, unplanned environments, and unplanned events t...

System designers, analysts, and engineers use various techniques to develop complex systems. A traditional design approach, point-based design (PBD), uses system decomposition and modeling, simulation, optimization, and analysis to find and compare discrete design alternatives. Set-based design (SBD) is a concurrent engineering technique that compa...

Complex system design requires significant uncertainty and risk reduction to develop feasible and resilient design solutions. Modeling and simulation offer a method for resolving uncertainty and reducing risk during early system design and prior to prototype development and testing. This paper surveys 22 multiresolution and variable fidelity modeli...

Increasing system complexity has been a driving force for the development of systems engineering methodologies. One of these methodologies is a concurrent engineering process known as set-based design (SBD). In support of ongoing SBD research, our team conducted a structured literature review to ascertain the current state of SBD research. This pap...

Increasing system complexity has provided the impetus to develop new and novel systems engineering methodologies. One of these methodologies is set-based design (SBD), a concurrent design methodology well suited for complex systems subject to significant uncertainty. Since the 1990s, numerous private, public, and defense sector design programs have...

Many organizations use systems engineering and project management practices. In 2011, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) and the Project Management Institute (PMI) announced a partnership to better integrate their practices and identified several common practices. This paper focuses on portfolio management by reviewing ISO/IE...

Presentation to accompany the ASEM Conference Paper

Over the years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has implemented several significant modifications to its acquisition process with the goal of producing timely and cost-effective systems. These changes, however, have done little to curb major design problems, delays and cost overruns to programs. Many DoD acquisition programs use Point-Based Design...

The Engineered Resilient Systems research program seeks to improve decision making in the Analysis of Alternatives process by leveraging model-based engineering (MBE) early in the design process to develop more resilient systems. Traditional tradespace exploration using point-based design often converges quickly to an initial baseline design concep...

Recently, efforts to model and assess a system's resilience to disruptions due to environmental and adversarial threats have increased substantially. Researchers have investigated resilience in many disciplines, including sociology, psychology, computer networks, and engineering systems, to name a few. When assessing engineering system resilience,...

This paper surveys the literature on resilience, provides several definitions of resilience, and proposes a new comprehensive definition for a resilient engineered system, which is: a system that is able to successfully complete its planned mission(s) in the face of disruption(s) (environmental or adversarial), and has capabilities allowing it to s...

Set‐Based Design (SBD) is a concurrent engineering technique for system design and systems analysis and an alternative to Point‐Based Design (PBD). System analysts perform Tradespace Exploration in early system design to assess requirements and identify affordable designs that meet complex stakeholder requirements. This paper demonstrates the use o...

The Department of Defense Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) goes beyond the concept of resilience as a response to a disruption. The ERS project focuses on improving design agility and cost-effectiveness leading to improvements in systems analysis, development, testing, manufacturing, and fielding of mission-effective and adaptable systems. Point-...

In today’s competitive global markets, ports play a vital role in global supply chain operations. A port selection model was developed to demonstrate the potential to aid shipping line companies with decisions to select the best ports in the U.S. Gulf Coast. Because port selection is complex, is dynamic, and includes multiple objectives, a multiple...

Adequately exploring the tradespace in the early system design phase is important to determine the best design concepts to pursue in the next life cycle stage. Tradespace exploration (TSE) often uses trade-off analysis. Set-based design (SBD) methods, compared to traditional point-based design, explore significantly more designs. An integrated fram...

The INCOSE Corporate Advisory Board documented the need for a guidebook on best practices for trade studies. They wanted a book that covered the system lifecycle and aligned with INCOSE process guidance (ISO/IEC 15288, Systems Engineering Handbook, and the “Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge”). The INCOSE Decision Analysis Working Group supporte...

We take the position that an engineered system is a means to enable user capability that provides value to stakeholders and address the question of the fundamental nature of resilience of engineered systems. Therefore, resilience is concerned with the behavior of the system in the face of a disruption, in particular emphasizing the management, thro...

The DoD and Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) community seek to leverage the capabilities of model‐based engineering (MBE) early in the design process to improve decision making in AoAs. Traditional tradespace exploration with point‐based design often converges quickly on a solution and engineering changes are required after this selection. Set‐ba...

Dynamically transforming mission contexts in conjunction with ever-increasing budgetary constraints provides great impetus for the Department of Defense (DoD) to identify resilient systems early in the design process. The engineered resilient systems (ERS) community of interest (COI) research efforts focus on identifying and quantifying methods to...

The West Africa gross domestic product is expected to grow and port expansion projects will increase capacity by over 12 million TEUs (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units) by 2020. With the economic potential that the region offers and the steady growth of container traffic, the port selection decision by shipping lines is complex because the region has a...

Executive Summary: This report is based on excerpts from the in-progress final report of a multi-year project to develop a risk management system for recreational boating in the United States. Such a system needs to address the effects of proposed (e.g., regulatory) safety actions on the freedom of boaters, as well as the views and resources of a...

In recent years there has been an increased need for resilience in complex military and civilian systems due to evolving adversarial and environmental threats. Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program focusing on the effective and efficient design and development of complex engineered systems. These complex system...

The industrial robotics industry has been innovating and advancing the capabilities of robots and their operator interfaces for over fifty years, yet recent research estimates that only approximately 10% of manufacturing tasks are currently automated. Collaborative robotics represents the next step in the evolution of industrial robotics, significa...

Complex DoD systems need to be resilient due to evolving adversarial and environmental threats. The DoD created a program called Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) to increase resilience in future systems. In our ERS research, resilience has been separated into two parts, mission and platform resilience. Mission resilience is the ability of a syste...

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has recently revised the defense acquisition system to address suspected root causes of unwanted acquisition outcomes. One of the major changes in the revised acquisition system is an increased emphasis on systems engineering trade-offs made between capability requirements and lifecycle costs early in the acquis...

In this final chapter, we summarize the major themes of the book and identify some potential trends that may impact trade-off analyses in the future. The major themes were also the guiding principles that were used in the development of the INCOSE Decision Management Process in the Systems Engineering Handbook (INCOSE, 2015) and the Decision Manage...

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has recently revised the defense acquisition system to address suspected root causes hindering higher success rates. This article applies two systems thinking methodologies in a uniquely integrated fashion to provide an in-depth review and compelling interpretation of the revised defense acquisition system as pu...

The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) of the Department of Homeland Security was created to increase the United States' ability to detect radiological and nuclear (RN) material that could be obtained and then used by terrorists. The office coordinates the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA), an international and interagency strategy...

Space and cyberspace operations are primary missions within the U.S. Armed Forces. The Air Force Space Command performs investment planning for Air Force space and cyberspace missions. They have performed space investment planning for over 15 years using multiobjective decision analysis to assess the value of space programs for military operations...

Space and cyberspace operations are primary missions within the U.S. Armed Forces. Air Force Space Command performs investment planning for Air Force space and cyberspace missions. The command has performed space investment planning for more than 15 years using multiobjective decision analysis to assess the value of space programs for military oper...

Intelligent adversaries are a fundamental component of terrorism risk analysis. Unlike natural and engineering hazards, intelligent adversaries adapt their behavior to the actions of the defender. They adapt to observed, perceived, and imputed likely future actions by those defending the system they are attempting to influence. Risk assessment mode...

Tradeoff studies are a critical tool to provide information to support decision making for discipline engineers, systems engineers, and program managers throughout the system life cycle. Unfortunately, the quality of trade studies is inconsistent between organizations and within organizations. This paper reports on part of an INCOSE effort to impro...

Tradeoff studies are a critical tool to provide information to support decision making for discipline engineers, systems engineers, and program managers throughout the system life cycle. Unfortunately, the quality of tradeoff studies is typically inconsistent between organizations and within organizations. This paper reports on part of an INCOSE ef...

Criteria are the central focus of multi‐criteria decision analysis. Many authors have suggested using our values (or preferences) to define the criteria we use to evaluate alternatives. Value‐focused thinking (VFT) is an important philosophy that advocates a more fundamental view of values in our decision making in our private and professional live...

Recent developments using directed acyclical graphs (i.e., influence diagrams and Bayesian networks) for knowledge representation have lessened the problems of using probability in knowledge-based systems (KBS). Most current research involves the efficient propagation of new evidence, but little has been done concerning the maintenance of domain-sp...

The development of creative alternatives that have the potential to create high value for the organization is one of the most important tasks of the decision analyst. This chapter identifies the characteristics of a good set of alternatives. The decision analyst’s goal is to create a small set of alternatives that are feasible, complete, compelling...

This chapter identifies the important professional decision-making questions that decision analysis helps to answer the questions. It emphasizes that the purpose of decision analysis is to create value for decision makers and stakeholders and describes the two approaches to defining value. The chapter focuses on the importance of understanding that...

This chapter describes decision-making challenges and introduces some reasons why decision analysis is valuable to decision makers, but also why decision analysis may be difficult to apply. It first discusses the decision-making processes that humans typically employ. Then, the chapter describes the factors that make decision making a challenge. It...

This chapter reviews the soft skills necessary for interacting with decision makers, stakeholders, and subject matter experts. It presents and describes the following nine decision analysis soft skills: thinking strategically, leading teams, managing projects, researching, interviewing individuals, conducting surveys, facilitating groups, aggregati...

Decision analysis is an operations research/management science (OR/MS) discipline that is designed to help decisions makers faced with difficult decisions, multiple stakeholders with many objectives, complex alternatives, significant uncertainties, and important consequences. This chapter examines the technical foundations of decision analysis. It...

This chapter presents how to choose the appropriate process to provide decision support to senior decision makers who have the responsibility and authority to make an important decision for their organization or enterprise. It addresses several questions. What is a good decision? How much time and effort should be devoted to the decision? Who shoul...

This chapter describes shareholder and stakeholder value, which is the basis for the decision objectives. It discusses why the identification of objectives is challenging. The chapter lists some of the key questions one can use to identify decision objectives and the four major techniques for identifying decision objectives: research, interviews, f...

The purpose of this chapter is to identify the decision analysis communication challenges and provides best practices for communicating the results of decision analyses with the decision maker(s) and stakeholders on the decision team. It discusses how the decision analyst can establish communication objectives for each communication opportunity wit...

The decision frame is the critical first step in decision analysis. The decision frame helps us define the decision. This chapter first discusses how a decision is declared. Then, it discusses what constitutes a good frame for a decision. A decision frame specifies three key aspects of the decision: purpose, perspective and scope. The chapter also...

Socially, the purpose of decision analysis is to provide credible, understandable, and timely insights to decision makers and key stakeholders in organizations. Technically, decision analysis is an operations research/management science discipline that uses probability, value, and utility theory to analyze complex alternatives, under significant un...

This chapter focuses on a very important class of stakeholders, the decision implementers. The active participation of decision implementers is critical to effective and efficient decision implementation. The chapter discusses how to use standard decision analysis techniques and soft skills during the decision analysis effort to involve the decisio...

This chapter summarizes several approaches that have been used successfully in government, oil and gas, and pharmaceutical industries among others to make the portfolio problem manageable. It describes the sociotechnical challenges with portfolio decision analysis. The chapter presents portfolio decision analysis with a single financial objective a...

This chapter introduces the influence diagram as a tool for planning the model. It discusses the advantages of spreadsheet software as a modeling platform. The chapter provides guidelines for building a spreadsheet decision model. It describes how the reader organizes a spreadsheet model. The chapter also describes debugging a spreadsheet model. It...

A ONE-OF-A-KIND GUIDE TO THE BEST PRACTICES IN DECISION ANALYSIS. Decision analysis provides powerful tools for addressing complex decisions that involve uncertainty and multiple objectives, yet most training materials on the subject overlook the soft skills that are essential for success in the field. This unique resource fills this gap in the dec...

Half Title Wiley Series Page Title Copyright Contents List of Figures List of Tables Foreword Preface Acknowledgments About the Authors Acronyms

The U.S. has developed and deployed the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA) to detect the smuggling of nuclear or radiological devices obtained from an uncontrolled source into the U.S. to attack or threaten a target. The GNDA employs a layered defense architecture with three layers: External, Border, and Interior. Using agreements between...

The draft of the Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK version 0.5) was released in a wiki format on September 19, 2011. This paper uses SEBoK to assess the undergraduate systems engineering programs at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy. Both ABET accredited engineering prog...

The purpose of the Blue Horizons study was to determine the capabilities and technologies in which the United States Air Force would need to invest to maintain dominant air, space, and cyberspace capabilities in the year 2030. The study used two methodologies, scenario analysis and multiobjective decision analysis, to evaluate 58 future-system conc...

We review the use of portfolio decision analysis in military applications, such as weapon systems, types of forces, installations, and military research and development projects. We start by comparing military and commercial portfolio problems in general, discussing the distinguishing characteristics of the military decision environment: hostile an...

In counterterrorism risk management decisions, the analyst can choose to represent terrorist decisions as defender uncertainties or as attacker decisions. We perform a comparative analysis of probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) methods including event trees, influence diagrams, Bayesian networks, decision trees, game theory, and combined methods on t...

This chapter provides a process for defining a problem and articulating what decision maker(s) value from a solution to his/her problem. An effective solution is one that meets the values articulated by the key stakeholders. The research and stakeholder analysis task is an important and iterative process. When introduced to a new problem, systems e...

This chapter introduces the systems decision process (SDP) that has been developed by faculty members of the Systems Engineering Department at the United States Military Academy. The lead systems engineer guides the team in how it approaches the systems decision process. Two main philosophies dominate the approach strategies: alternative-focused th...

This chapter focuses on the process of determining a recommendation and obtaining a decision. It is important to remember that when supporting a systems decision, systems engineers do not make the decision but rather they provide the necessary information to enable a logical, defensible decision by the decision maker. The chapter discusses how to o...

This chapter introduces systems engineering. First, it reviews the definition of a system and then provides a brief history of the relatively new discipline of systems engineering. The chapter further identifies the major trends in systems that provide challenges for systems engineers. Next, it reviews the definition of systems engineering and uses...

When using multiobjective decision analysis with an additive value/utility model, we may define local ranges of the value measures that are bounded by the set of alternatives, or we can define global ranges of the value measures that are bounded by our preferences for some future set of alternatives. Local value models use the full value space defi...

The tragic events of 9/11 and the concerns about the potential for a terrorist or hostile state attack with weapons of mass destruction have led to an increased emphasis on risk analysis for homeland security. Uncertain hazards (natural and engineering) have been successfully analyzed using probabilistic risk analysis (PRA). Unlike uncertain hazard...

The Risk Management Project develops a community process to identify best safety solutions. This report serves two purposes: (1) to document the development of a computer-enabled process for considering "freedom" as a value, (along with cost and risk,) in evaluating alternatives for boating safety actions. This process takes into account the values...

Multiobjective decision analysis is used for trade studies and the evaluation of alternative system and architecture designs. Attributes are identified to measure the achievement of each objective. Value (or utility) models are mathematical equations that assess the value (or utility) of a score on an attribute and relative weight of each attribute...

is a professor of systems engi-neering at the United States Military Academy at West Point and teaches decision and risk analysis, systems engineering, and operations research. He received his PhD from Stanford University. His research focuses on decision analysis, risk analysis, and resource allocation for defense, intelligence, homeland security,...

This article describes the fundamentals of logic trees used in decision and risk analysis. We include in the broad definition of logic trees any conceptual or mathematical model that describes scenarios of events and/or decisions in a treelike structure. Logic trees are important tools for analyzing uncertain events, defining accident scenarios, as...

Risk is the potential for loss or harm due to the likelihood of an unwanted scenario and its potential adverse consequences. Risk analysis, encompassing risk assessment and risk management, has been widely adopted as the proper analytic construct for evaluating the terrorist threat and efficiently allocating finite resources to counter intelligent...

For this final issue of the year, our first two articles are on assessment of probabilities. First, Joel B. Predd, Daniel N. Osherson, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, and H. Vincent Poor present a method for “Aggregating Probabilistic Forecasts from Incoherent and Abstaining Experts.” In our second article, Ali E. Abbas, David V. Budescu, Hsiu-Ting Yu, and Ry...

Major investment projects are essential for companies and governments to develop new products and services to maintain the growth of the company or the viability of the government agency. Early in an investment’s life cycle, the identification and evaluation of risk is a critical project management task that will have a direct impact on the future...

This issue's “From the Editors” column is coauthored with all the associate editors to emphasize their major role in the leadership of the journal. Our first article is on “Proper Scoring Rules, Dominated Forecasts, and Coherence,” by Mark J. Schervish, Teddy Seidenfeld, and Joseph B. Kadane. In the second article, Jason R. W. Merrick provides an o...

In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) completed its first Bioterrorism Risk Assessment (BTRA), intended to be the foundation for DHS's subsequent biennial risk assessments mandated by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10 (HSPD-10). At the request of DHS, the National Research Council established the Committee on Methodological I...

This paper presents the Systems Decision Process, a value-focused systems engineering decision process used to support fact-based decision making. The process provides analysis products to support major system decisions that are made at major decision gates in each system life cycle stage. The process has four phases: problem definition, solution d...