A Game Theory approach to Bargaining over Attributes of Complex Systems in the context of Value-Driven Design: An Aircraft system case study

摘要

A large number of individuals and various organizations are involved in the design of Large Scale Complex Engineered Systems (LSCES), the process of which spans several years and involves decision-making at all levels. Most of these decisions are driven by requirements specified by the customer. The system thus obtained by the down flow of these requirements through the hierarchy of the organization might not capture the true preferences of the stakeholder, as requirements essentially state what is not required of the system. Previous work has demonstrated how Value-Driven Design (VDD) can be used to capture the true preferences of the stakeholder. In cases where the preferences of the stakeholder are misaligned, as in the case of Defense Acquisitions, a gap in value may lead to a sub-optimal system design. A previous study suggested bargaining over the attributes of the system to determine if the final system design is more consistent with the preferences of the stakeholders as opposed to the system price bargain done traditionally. This work is a continuation of the previous study and explores the effect of the implication of the bargain model on system design. An aircraft desired by the government that prefers mission success and being designed by a commercial organization, that aims at maximizing its profit has been used as a case study here. A high level bomber aircraft has been designed to use as an example in this study. The paper studies two variations of the new form of bargaining mentioned above to see the effect on the design of the final system and the values to the stakeholders from these designs.