Decision Analysis for Operation & Maintenance Professionals
Priority Setting and Multi-Criteria Decision Making
Course Overview
Decision-making is a core managerial and technical competency; however, it is often affected by cognitive biases, incomplete information, and time constraints. This course addresses these challenges by introducing proven decision analysis frameworks and practical “what-if” analysis techniques that enhance the quality, consistency, and transparency of operational decisions.
Participants will gain hands-on experience with intuitive and powerful decision-support tools and methodologies that enable data-driven decisions across asset management, reliability, maintenance planning, and safety management contexts.
Course Objectives
By attending this HighPoint Center (HPC) training course, participants will be able to:
- Improve productivity through the use of accurate, timely, and relevant decision-support information
- Understand how world-class organisations address and solve common asset management and reliability challenges
- Optimise planning and scheduling resources and conduct structured failure and reliability analyses
- Optimise asset management budgets by reducing unplanned equipment failures and service interruptions
- Develop a practical, implementable action plan to apply decision analysis technologies within their areas of responsibility
- Learn systematically from failures using decision analysis and root cause analysis techniques applied to major industrial incidents
Course Audience
This training course is suitable for a broad range of technical and managerial professionals, and is particularly beneficial for:
- Operations, Maintenance, and Safety Professionals
- Reliability and Asset Management Engineers
- Maintenance and Operations Supervisors
- Key Operations and Technical Team Leaders
- Internal Improvement, Quality, and Continuous Improvement Consultants
Course Methodology
The course adopts a highly interactive and practice-oriented learning approach, combining:
- Instructor-led presentations grounded in international best practices
- Step-by-step explanations of decision analysis models and tools
- Practical exercises using real-world operational scenarios
- Case studies drawn from industrial operations and asset-intensive organisations
- Group discussions and workshops to reinforce learning and encourage peer knowledge exchange
Course Outline
Day One: Foundations of Decision Making
- Scope and significance of decisions in operational environments
- The structured decision-making process
- Best practice through learning from worst practice
- Introduction to reliability concepts and Weibull analysis
- Case studies and group exercises
Day Two: Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Using AHP
- Definition and purpose of decision analysis
- How and why poor decisions are made
- Guidelines for effective decision analysis
- Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP): concepts and applications
- Benefit–cost analysis and resource allocation
Day Three: Risk Management and Reliability Analysis
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
- Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
- Risk Priority Number (RPN)
- Criticality matrix development
- Modelling reliability of series and parallel systems
- Redundancy concepts
Day Four: MRP and ERP Systems
- Overview of ERP systems and their evolution
- Fundamentals of Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
- Bill of Materials (BOM)
- Master Production Schedule (MPS)
- Practical examples, case studies, and group exercises
Day Five: Decision Analysis for Maintenance Optimisation
- Maximising value from Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)
- Benefits and performance improvements enabled by CMMS
- Optimised decision-making for maintenance policies
- Key features of next-generation maintenance systems
- Transforming data into actionable decisions
- Practical approaches and applied case studies
Certificates