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All these ingredients require evaluation of safety, potential litigation, and environ¬mental impact. Establishing each of these ingredients includes decision making from the start of the design process.

1.2.3  The Decision Maker and Decision Making

Decision makers are concerned with the consequences of their decisions for both their employers and society, as well as for their own egos and professional reputa¬tions. By themselves, these concerns may cause faulty decision making.

The decision maker may operate in one of the following ways (Janis and Mann [1.15a] as discussed by Dieter [1.15]):

•           Decide to continue with current actions and ignore information about risk of

losses.

•           Uncritically adopt the most strongly recommended course of action.

•           Evade conflict by putting off the decision, passing it off to someone else.

•           Search frantically for an immediate solution.

•           Search painstakingly for relevant information, digest it in an unbiased way, and

evaluate it carefully before making a decision.

Unfortunately, only the last way leads to a good, effective decision, and it may be compromised by time constraints.

The basic ingredients for a good, effective decision are listed in Table 1.10, along with substitutions that may have to be made in practice. The use of these items [1.15b] is discussed at length in Dieter [1.15].

An action of some type is implied after a decision is made and may be classified as a must action, a should action, a want action, or an actual action.

A must action is one that has to be done and differentiates between acceptability and unacceptability. A should action is what ought to be done and is the expected standard of performance for meeting objectives. A should action is compared with an actual action, or what is occurring at the time the decision is being made. A want action does not have to be implemented but may be negotiated as reflecting desires rather than requirements (discussed in Dieter [1.15]).

The steps in [1.15b] for making a good decision are summarized by Dieter [1.15] as follows:

TABLE 1.10  Basic Decision-Making Ingredients

Ingredient        Surrogate

Fact     Information

Knowledge      Advice

Experience      Ad hoc experimentation

Analysis          Intuition

Judgment        None

SOURCE: D. Fuller, Machine Design, July 22, 1976, pp. 64-68.