Robust Decision Making

Abstract

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is funded through the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy and other customers who have direct contracts with the Laboratory. The people, equipment, facilities and other infrastructure at the laboratory require continual investment to maintain and improve the laboratory’s capabilities. With ever tightening federal and customer budgets, the ability to direct investments into the people, equipment, facilities and other infrastructure which are most closely aligned with the laboratory’s mission and customers’ goals grows increasingly more important. The ability to justify those investment decisions based on objective criteria that can withstand political, managerial and technical criticism also becomes increasingly more important. The Systems Engineering tools of decision analysis, risk management and roadmapping, when properly applied to such problems, can provide defensible decisions.