Weight System Performance And Cost Data

In some cases, the performance and cost data for, each candidate system show which system is the best choice. This outcome terminates the feasibility study. Many times, however, the situation is not so clear-cut. The performance/cost evaluation matrix in does not clearly identify the best system, so the next step is to weight the importance of each criterion by applying a rating figure. Then the candidate system with the highest total score is selected.

The procedure for weighting candidate systems is simple:

1. Assign a weighting factor to each evaluation criterion based on the criterion's effect on the success of the system. For example, if the usability criterion is twice as important as the accuracy factor, usability is assigned weight 4 and accuracy is assigned weight 2.
2. Assign a quantitative rating to each criterion's qualitative rating. For example, ratings (poor, fair, good, very good, excellent) may be assigned respective values (I, 2, 3, 4, 5).
3. Multiply the weight assigned to each category by the relative rating to determine the score.
4. Sum the score column for each candidate system.