6th European Conference - Academic Conferences

Tridip Bardhan et al.
More discussion about ANP can be found in (Saaty, 1980; Saaty, 1996) and on Delphi technique in
(Brown, 1968; Hartman et al., 2007; Okoli and Pawlowski, 2004).
Figure 2: Delphi-ANP evaluation methodology
The Delphi-ANP methodology presented in this article consists of four Delphi rounds, which are blended
in with ANP procedure to yield the following eight steps; (i) Problem formulation and factor identification;
(ii) Forming evaluation panel; (iii) Defining evaluation Criteria; (iv) Structuring the problem network model;
(v) problem elements appraisal; (vi) judgment weights analysis; (vii) elements ranking approval; (viii) and
finally the best alternative selection (See Figure 2)
To illustrate the ANP-Delphi methodology, this paper will consider an actual case study in a state
government agency, referred hereinafter as TGA (real name withheld).
4. Application of Delphi-ANP methodology for EI approach selection
The Delphi-ANP methodology was applied and validated at TGA, a state government agency in eastcoast
of USA. TGA is composed of several organizational functions and manages several engineering
and transportation facilities across the state. However, many of these functions are supported by different
systems for their day-to-day operations. Unfortunately, most of these systems exist within technical and
functional walls of separation that creates barriers to integration and sharing of data; and thus inefficient
business processing. Accordingly, the agency has taken several measures to address its integration
challenges as an effort to achieve its strategic goals of effectiveness, efficiency and service improvement.
At the time of this study, TGA was embarked in efforts to integrate some of its backbone information
systems, such as those used in agency’s financial management, supply chain management and
maintenance operations. In other similar integration projects, TGA has successfully developed in-house
integration solutions by either establishing direct interfaces between applications, replicating data
between databases or simply databases-consolidation. However, for the particular initiative considered in
this study, any of these traditional approaches may not have been viable option for several reasons. First,
the systems intended to be integrated are the backbone of the agency’s operations; and must therefore
integrate with other systems in a different platform and located within and outside the agency’s boundary.
Secondly, these systems uses different data format, and thus the issue of data uniformity presented a
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