The development of decision analysis at our organization started in 1985 when our current research division SEEL-Systems Engineering Economics Lab, founded in 1983, purchased the research results and additional publications produced by the Decision Analysis Group at the Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California.

Most of this work had been coordinated by Professor Ronald Howard the person who developed decision analysis as a discipline and who coined the term "decision analysis".



Since that date we have developed decision analysis techniques as well as completing consultancy assignments for clients such as the Manpower Services Commission in support of their selection committee on EU funded information technology research proposals. The approach was introduced to the European Commission's Information Technology and Telecommunications Task Force by our Director, Hector McNeill to support strategic planning for Europe wide funding initiatives.

Spin-offs from this work include Accumulogs (blockchain technology) and Locational-State Theory.

Many of the project analytical tools making up the SDGToolkit (see left) range of utilities are decision analysis models used to optimise project designs.

A considerable amount of our development of decision analysis has been related to the development of techniques for data selection and specifications of units of measurement for statistics collection and analysis of economic sectors activities.

This has included the creation of the data identification technique based on "Data Reference Models-DRMs"¹ which we developed as part of our DAI-Decision Analysis Initiative 2010-2020 through our development of Open Quality Standards (OQSI).

A considerable amount of the SDGToolkit work included natural resources and agricultural project design where considerations of the impact of location and time in seasons need to be taken into account.

In this work we have advanced the original work of Hector McNeill, initiated at the School of Engineering at Stanford on Locational-State Theory and agroecological zoning.