Selecting system portfolios

Most design decisions are treated as exclusive finite choice decisions. The decision maker is presented with a finite set of design alternatives and must choose exactly one of the presented alternatives. This paper studies the case where the decision maker is presented with a finite number of alternatives and can choose an indeterminate number of them, usually subject to some other constraint, such as budget. In addition to reviewing some past work, the paper presents some new results in mixed simulation and optimization, multi-criteria utility visualization, and the integration of alternative future strategic planning methods with system portfolio choice.