Enhancing Coast Guard Infrastructure Management: A Multi-Criteria Framework for Prioritizing Maintenance Projects
Name
ballard-zballard-sm-sdm-2025-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
4.28 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
899167fec32de7a3a0657df699512624
Author(s)
Ballard, Zachary N.
Advisor(s)
Rhodes, Donna H.
Date Issued
February 2025
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The United States Coast Guard is currently transforming its decision-making process for prioritizing shore infrastructure maintenance and repair projects. Current decision-making subjectivity appears to be generating inadequate project prioritizations. Stakes are high for an aging infrastructure portfolio in harsh coastal conditions, with increased national reliance on the Coast Guard in a fiscally constrained budgetary environment. Data availability, quality, and fidelity continue to increase, supporting the rationale for more robust and data-informed decision-making frameworks.
The research begins with examining Coastal and Shore Operations (CSO) funding history, along with a thorough description of the current Centralized Planned Obligation Prioritization (C-POP) process. The complex, sociotechnical nature of the problem is highlighted by identifying all involved stakeholders and categorizing them through the leading view of stakeholder theory and salience. A detailed review of the governing asset management literature is conducted, gradually narrowing from a broad, international, and asset-type neutral perspective to more tailored infrastructure cross-asset prioritization material. Requisite framework data substance, collection, and analyses are described, and recommendations for data processing improvements are made.
Two leading prioritization models are examined: the Importance and Urgency Quadrant Model and the Value Focused Multi-Criteria Decision Model. Their respective data visualizations are generated and analyzed. Using the multi-criteria analysis rooted in multi-attribute utility theory, four portfolios of measurably increasing value are constructed, compared with a baseline portfolio reflecting actual project selections in December 2023. These portfolio iterations include a linear programming solution to the Knapsack Problem of selecting projects that maximize overall portfolio utility within a budget limit while incorporating some of the more social and qualitative system properties.
A traceable, adaptable, defendable, and objective data-informed multi-criteria framework is proposed, which aims to facilitate the effectiveness of the overall Coast Guard shore infrastructure portfolio in the long term.
MIT Department
System Design and Management Program.
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