Software provides equipment procurement direction for United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence.

Sorting the model marks a turning point in the decision
conference. This is the main processing conducted by Equity
3, and it is extremely fast running. This is essential to allow
rapid what-if analysis, which underpins the ability to explore
implications of contentious scores and weights.
Each area can then be reviewed to see the weighted preference
values set against cost as shown in Figure 5. This is a
review point where the facilitator will look to identify the furrowed
brows suggesting that the result is not accepted by some
participants. The key is that the model produced represents the
views of these. It does not imply that these views are correct.

The area diagram in Figure 5 illustrates the characteristic
convex slope of options sorted into descending benefit-cost
ratio order. The gradient of the triangle formed by the benefit
and cost vectors for each option shows the benefit-to-cost ratio.
Equity 3 shows the triangles formed by costs and benefits,
which assists the participants to understand the results. This is
a good point to establish that they have provided scores, which
reflected their true views. In the example, option + Type A –
although with a lower benefit than the planned training sets
options – has lower costs and so a high benefit-to-cost ratio.
Some Defence equipment has materially longer service life
than other equipment, so annualized costs are used to correct
for these variations.

Having reviewed the areas to ensure that they represent the
views of the conference, the potential portfolios can be viewed.
The green area shows all possible combinations of the options.
The top edge of this area comprises the most benefit-cost
advantageous options in descending order.