SURE: A method for decision-making under uncertainty

Managerial decision-making often involves the consideration of multiple criteria with high levels of uncertainty. Multi-attribute utility theory, a primary method proposed for decision-making under uncertainty, has been repeatedly shown to be difficult to use in practice. This paper presents a novel approach termed Simulated Uncertainty Range Evaluations (SURE) to aid decision makers in the presence of high levels of uncertainty. SURE has evolved from an existing method that has been applied extensively in the pharmaceutical and speciality chemical sectors involving uncertain decisions in whole process design. The new method utilises simulations based upon triangular distributions to create a plot which visualises the preferences and overlapping uncertainties of decision alternatives. It facilitates decision-makers to visualise the not-so-obvious uncertainties of decision alternatives. In a real-world case study for a large pharmaceutical company, SURE was compared to other widely-used methods for decision-making and was the only method that correctly identified the alternative eventually chosen by the company. The case study demonstrates that SURE can perform better than other existing methods for decision-making involving multiple criteria and uncertainty.