Using a Principal-Agent Model to Investigate Delegation in Systems Engineering
Using a Principal-Agent Model to Investigate Delegation in Systems Engineering
复制标题
使用委托代理模型研究系统工程中的委托
DOI：
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发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
R. Malak
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
S. Vermillion;R. Malak
决策授权是系统工程问题的一个基本特征。组织中更高层次的工程师和管理人员通过需求流和其他过程将责任和资源分配给其他个人。在系统工程项目中普遍存在的进度延迟和预算超支提出了关于改进现有方法的充分性和潜力的问题。然而，目前社区缺乏对这些过程的基本理解，这些过程在识别和验证系统工程过程的候选改进方面是有价值的。在本文中，我们开发了一个基于委托-代理问题的概念建模框架，这是一个跨层次agent交互的博弈论模型。在基本模型的基础上可能有几种变体。以某乘用车工程过程为例，研究了该模型及其变体。数值结果突出了各种假设的影响，包括工程师的行为是否规范或根据提出的行为决策模型。讨论了影响和扩展，包括对工程决策模型的行为验证的需求以及使用建模框架评估新提出的委托方案的潜力。ASME版权所有©2015
Delegation of decision authority is a fundamental characteristic of systems engineering problems. Engineers and managers at higher levels within the organization allocate responsibility and resources to other individuals through requirements flowdown and other processes. The prevalence of schedule slippages and budget overruns on systems engineering projects raises questions about the adequacy of and potential to improve existing methods. However, at present the community lacks a foundational understanding of these processes that would be valuable in identifying and validating candidate improvements to the systems engineering process. In this paper, we develop a conceptual modeling framework for delegation in systems engineering based on the principal-agent problem, a game-theoretic model of agent interaction across hierarchical levels. Several variations on the basic model are possible. We study the model and its variations on an illustrative example of a passenger vehicle engineering process. Numerical results highlight the impact of various assumptions, including whether engineers act normatively or according to proposed behavioral decision models. Implications and extensions are discussed, including the need for behavioral validation of engineering decision models and the potential to use the modeling framework to evaluate newly proposed delegation schemes.Copyright © 2015 by ASME