Effectiveness in Decision-Making in Ship Design under Uncertainty
The objective of this thesis is to develop a better understanding of how to carry out more effective conceptual ship design processes. Under the premise that uncertainty influences the effectiveness of the decision-making process in ship design, it is argued that to improve the way daily ship design...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | eng |
| Online Access: | Request full text |
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| Summary: | The objective of this thesis is to develop a better understanding of how to carry out more effective conceptual ship design processes. Under the premise that uncertainty influences the effectiveness of the decision-making process in ship design, it is argued that to improve the way daily ship design activities are carried out, it is necessary to understand the uncertainty present in such processes. It is also necessary for ship designers to know how to reduce the negative effects of uncertainty. This research tries to find answers to the following research questions: What are the important uncertainties in conceptual ship design, and how do they influence effective decision-making?
The research question is explored using a multi/mixed-method denominated exploratory design research. It consists of exploring a phenomenon based on a qualitative evaluation and then probing quantitatively the extracted hypothesis. The initial analysis requires a deep evaluationof uncertainties in the ship design domain as perceived by the different actors involved in the conceptual design phase of new ships. Particular attention is given to the role of the ship owner in the design process. An extensive literature review is carried out to explore the role of uncertainty in ship design decision-making. An investigative model is developed based on this literature study. Further, our developed investigative model is tested using multivariate regression analysis. The data analysed was collected through an online survey involving 23 shipping companies.
This research has confirmed a relationship between the independent and dependent constructs uncertainty and decision-making effectiveness. Uncertainty is found to explain 14% of the variability of decision-making effectiveness in conceptual ship design processes. Furthermore, uncertainty is also confirmed to consist of five factors: (i) context, (ii) agent, (iii) input, (iv)model and (v) process. These factors contribute differently to the decision-making effectiveness.
The independent factors context, agent and model have a positive effect on decision-making effectiveness, meaning that the higher the emphasis given to these factors in the design process, the higher the decision-making effectiveness of the design process. The independent factor context has the most significant effect (19.5%), followed by the independent factors agent (19.0%) and model (15.9%), respectively. The independent factors process (-30.9%) and input (-19.7%) ha |
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