Solutions - Engineering and Trade Studies

Engineers regularly make decisions that impact the structure, function and safety of products the rest of humanity uses daily. Take an elevator, for example. Did the cabling selected have the right tensile strength for the load anticipated? Can the lithium grease on the bearings withstand high temperatures under maximum load? Will the sensor on the door’s safety bar consistently recognize a small child under 45 lbs (20 kgs)?

These decisions are critical, yet often go unnoticed by the average person. When they are done right, the product works, no one notices … and no one thanks the engineer. When a mistake is made, a disaster can occur, people can get hurt, and the engineer is the first to be blamed.

It stands then that engineering decision making involves some of the most important decisions made today. Fortunately, engineers are typically smart about it, having been trained to use sound analytical techniques and proper tools. They also understand and appreciate good measurement techniques.

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is just such a technique. Recognized as one of the best measurement techniques available where human judgment and quantitative data are involved, the AHP has shown itself to be the Engineer’s best friend. Why? Ratio scale measurement. It has been shown through hundreds of scientific analyses that the AHP methodology, above others, yields ratio scale priorities when implemented properly. Ratios, as you may remember from your statistics course in college, are the highest level of measurement, subsuming Nominal, Ordinal and Interval level data. Most engineers are well aware of this concept, and have even studied the mathematics behind the AHP methodology – which uses eigenvectors and eigenvalues. These engineers know that the typical weights and scores spreadsheet analyses using Likert scales are flawed and/or mathematically meaningless. Many engineers attempt to implement the AHP in a spreadsheet, and some succeed. Yet for the majority of engineers, they have more important tasks to work on than babysitting a spreadsheet loaded with matrix calculations.

Expert Choice tools can help. The Expert Choice tool suite takes the hassle (and pain) out of good measurement. It allows your engineers to focus on the designs and component decisions, rather than on the process of making the decision. Moreover, Expert Choice’s tools are eminently flexible, and designed to handle those unique situations that always arise when considering the systems your team is engineering.

At Synth Solutions we can help your team achieve engineering and trade study success. Using our EngineeringSynth™ methodology, we can teach your engineers a systems approach to engineering decisions and trade studies that unite the needs analysis, component selection, testing and validation processes to ensure that the full lifecycle is considered.

We offer several solutions to help your engineering decisions succeed:


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