Multiple-criteria evaluation for value management in civil engineering

This paper presents a fuzzy set-based approach for representing and synthesizing information about the different kinds of variables involved in the evaluation of a project's value. The variables considered can be quantitative crisp or fuzzy as well as qualitative ordinal. The information is given either by a single expert or by a team of experts. The proposed methodology for summarizing and normalizing values aims at contributing to decision-making analysis in the context of multiple-criteria evaluation and group decision making. The conditions that the aggregation function to be used must satisfy are also discussed. The weighted sum is characterized under quite restrictive assumptions, presenting a theorem based on Cauchy's functional equation. The aggregation function proposed is the weighted sum, with weights computed by a well-known analytic hierarchy process. A design is given of a fuzzy system for evaluating a project's value in the context of construction in civil engineering.