Municipal Wastewater Asset Prioritization Using Hierarchical Decision Modeling

Hierarchical Decision Modeling (HDM) has been developed as a decision making tool across multiple industries in a wide variety of applications. This paper presents the development of HDM as a tool to be used as an asset prioritization method in the municipal wastewater industry while providing a manual for other agencies to develop a model customized to their particular systems’ needs and capabilities. By converting a rudimentary risk-impact matrix, integrating expert feedback across two teams and a manager, and following the guidance of the established problem statement, an effective asset prioritization tool was developed as a means to accurately and consistently score and rank assets according to their priority for consideration for repair or replacement. Following development, a simulation was performed to validate the effectiveness of the tool by comparing it against the experience and expertise of the current decision maker.