Decision Support with Options Thinking for the Selection of Project Delivery Method in Shipbuilding

Cai Yedan

Abstract

Since the Year 2015, the downturn in oil and gas industry due to the depressed oil price has led to curtailment of rig orders or even cancelation of existing order. Despite offering a competitive price to award the orders, shipbuilding companies are also focusing on maintaining good relationship with customers by delivering the project on time and with good quality. Thus, the complex decision-making process of selecting the most appropriate project delivery method becomes increasingly important to the shipbuilding companies. This thesis focuses on developing a systematic decision-making process to provide an analytical approach in the selection of PDMs for a sub-system in shipbuilding. An integrated multiple decision analysis approach is proposed to support the decision-making process and applied to a case study on the hydraulic control system for hydraulic driven pumps in shipbuilding. In the proposed approach, a decision analysis model is developed to analyse the qualitative factors while an AHP model is developed to analyse the quantitative factors to provide input for the cost-effectiveness analysis. Limitation of the option-free DA model which is lack of flexibility to response to the new information is discussion and DA model with option thinking is introduced to enhance the overall value of the decision to the decision makers to improve the outcome of the option-free DA model.