Levels of decision

In each area of involvement (management, design, and construction) participants will have opportunities to avoid, reduce and control risks at three basic levels of intervention  

CIRIA (1997) CDM Regulations-Practical guidance for clients and clients agents, (Report 172) CIRIA London and CIRIA (1998) CDM Regulations-Practical Guidance for Planning Supervisors, (Report 173). CIRIA London. 

The distinction between strategic, operational and tactical levels of decision used in this Guide relates specifically to CDM issues. It is at variance with definitions used in some standard management texts. 

Finally, tactical measures and decisions will address the shortterm risk issues that arise from day to day actions on site, particularly the risks associated with the various types of construction activity being undertaken, the different work practices and trades, and the safety awareness of individual site operatives. The tactical level of decision is critically important in making immediate response to unexpected circumstances, unforeseeable events and to adjust to variable and uncontrollable local conditions under which work may need to be conducted. 

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For a plant design problem, students will need guidance on the hierarchical levels of decision making to choose a process. Also checklists of information needed for the design of typical parts of commercial processes prove invaluable. These are provided in Dr. Long s student handout. 

Each process owner requires a defined level of decision authority. This authority level delineates the bounds of decision making granted by the organization to the process owner. Business needs and risk assessment must be incorporated into the design of the decision authority granted to a process owner. Table 6 is an example of a decision authority matrix design for a process owner. It requires cross-functional management support to be effective. 

Separation system design offers an example. At the first level of decision making, we could classify the species and the phases involved to decide the type of likely separation methods that might be used. King [11] lists 54 different separation methods. Some are for gas-gas separation, others for gas-liquid, still others for gas-liquid-solid, and so forth. An approach is to make high-level decisions on which type (gas-gas, gas-liquid, etc.) of separation is needed for each of the separation steps required [9]. Then, based on these decisions, lower-level decisions select exactly which method to use to separate species having the same classification. 

Risk management, in simplified terms, is the decision-making process by which risk assessment results are integrated with other information to arrive at decisions about the need for, method of, and extent of risk reduction. This definition covers many levels of decision-making. At one level, it deals with the question of what programs should be undertaken to reduce risk to the population of the country. 

Within a framework for planning in complex systems, it is essential to keep five hierarchial levels of decision-making and not confuse them with each other (Robert, 2000) (see Fig. 4.12) ... 

The second level of decision making concerns the form of the biocatalyst, i.e., a whole cell, a cell organelle, an enzyme complex, a crude enzyme preparation, or an isolated enzyme, aU either free or immobilized. Availability, price, cofactor need, etc., are points that must be considered at this level. The costs associated with immobilization obviously should be regained by the possibility of developing a more efficient process. 

The major advantages of this are that it is systematic and it allows decisions to be taken with the appropriate level of detailed information. This is cost efficient, because no more information need be collected and analysed than is necessary to support the required level of decision making. 

In the next section we provide examples of three logistics models that span the three levels of decisions described above. In Section 4 we describe the key components of decision support systems (DSS) for logistics management. Finally, in Section 5 we describe the advantages and impact of using DSS on logistics management. 

The utilization of DSS will increase at all levels of decision making. The DSS will provide decision meikers with assistance in quickly making effective decisions. 

Figure 7 shows the relationships between different Levels of Decision-Making , the forms of displaying information in the Information Package , and the comparative Depth of Explanation versus Ease of Interpretation of each Form. 

Each uncertain parameter, djj, is denoted by a nominal value, dy, and a shift value, djj. Therefore, uncertain parameter dy could be demonstrated via the closed interval [dy—dy, dy + dy]. Contrary to common robust optimization models where it is assumed that all uncertain parameters can deviate from their nominal values, [21] assumed that probability of all uncertain parameters deviating from their nominal values is very small. Therefore, the decision-maker should decide a number F, known as uncertainty budget, which limits maximum number of uncertain parameters deviating from their nominal values. The selection of this number is highly dependent on the level of decision-maker s conservativeness. As the value of r increases, the level of decision-maker s conservativeness increases, and the robust model becomes more similar to minimax model of [17]. Considering /, as the set of uncertain parameters belonging to the row of A, the robust counterpart of problem (26.18)-(26.20) could be written as follows [21] ... 

Since we are not going to cover strategic models, there are two types of EPD models we will discuss with respect to level of decisions ... 

The decision chart in Fig. 16.20 can then be used to arrive at a value of k, which in turn can be applied by multiplication to the mean discharge predicted by the most appropriate method for the plain vertical wall (with the same h, etc.). The decision chart shows three levels of decision ... 

The subcommittee reviews each maintenance and work order with the employee who turned the order in and uses the Risk Guidance Tool to establish a priority for corrective action, moving the request to the next level of decision-makers. When the maintenance or work order is logged in as completed, a member of this team will follow-up with the employee reporting the condition to determine if it was corrected. The team member and the employee then sign off on the correction. 

Figure 16.1 shows the choices for defining the purpose of the partnership. The shaded square (IV) represents the existing situation — the as-is with respect to partnering and the roles of each link in the supply chain. The figure reflects two levels of decision. The first-level decision is whether to create new space in the supply chain. Moves from IV to I or II positions on the grid represent this decision. At the second decision level, a company can do this on its own (II) or it can choose to partner (I). 

System safety is a mishap risk management process, whereby mishap risk is identified through hazards, and if the risk does not meet the established level of acceptability, design action is taken to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. For various reasons, it is often impossible to eliminate mishap risk in many systems. System safety should be involved in establishing the criteria and constraints for acceptable risk for system programs. Military standard (MIL-STD)-882 identifies the criteria for four levels of risk high, serious, medium, and low, each of which is accepted by a different level of decision authority. 

In contrast, the operational level of decision shown in Figure 2, relates to the medium-term risk issues associated with the various stages of work and the specific site processes and operations that are to be undertaken. In refurbishment projects the safety implications of construction operations should be anticipated in terms of time, sequence and method. The planning of all site operations can have significant impact on site safety, to a far greater extent than in new-build projects. Decisions here, will focus on the detailed issues of organisation, management and communication to contain project risk, and the co-ordination of specific operations, one with another, for improved safety within the project overall. 

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