Decision making model for local development projects – Community and technology

Abstract

This paper structures the decision making process of Ingenieros Sin Fronteras Colombia, particularly the selection of the community to benefit and the technology to implement. The selection considers aspects to make a sustainable project and enable to evaluate multiple objectives. Aspects are about technology, social participation, social benefits, cost and savings, safety of the engineers, replicability, monitoring easiness and applied research. For example, the model evaluates social aspects like learning process, level of the empowerment of the technology and project, and number of beneficiaries. As another example, the model evaluates technical aspects like materials reachability, cost-effectiveness and complexity in the construction. Also this paper shows methodological process to analyze information, and then assign the importance to each objective. Analysis is based on collected data or it is based on expert opinion. Those opinions could be from different countries or different disciplines, but finally allow assigning the importance of a particular objective. At the end, the model computes all the attributes, sub-objectives and objectives in order to select the best alternative. Consequently the model allows deciding in a structured manner, identifying the best alternatives solution based on clearly defined criteria.

Author(s): Luis Camilo Caicedo López, Universidad de los Andes; Juan Camilo Silva Jaramillo, Universidad de los Andes; Laura Catalina Sierra Serna, Universidad de los Andes; María Catalina Ramírez Cajiao, Universidad de los Andes