Using Value-Focused Thinking to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Air Force Utility Privatization

The majority of the Air Force's stateside utility systems are old, obsolete, and unreliable. The cost to upgrade and repair these systems is currently estimated at over $4 billion. In response, the Air Force began efforts to convey ownership of these utility systems to the private sector through privatization efforts. However, privatization critics believe that newly privatized entities of government will cost the public more money and provide a lower level of service. Therefore, independent audits are a necessity to ensure government initiatives, meet their intended goals. However, the Air Force currently lacks an effective auditing tool to ensure the efficiency and lower cost associated with utility privatization are balanced with the desired increases in quality, reliability, and responsiveness of its utility systems. The Value-Focused Thinking methodology was used to create a multi-objective decision analysis model to determine the effectiveness of Air Force utility privatization efforts by evaluating the performance of privatized utility systems. Consisting of 28 bottom-tier values and 47 measures, the model captures the majority of the Air Force's objectives and concerns regarding its privatized utility systems. Using notational data, the utility systems at eight simulated Air Force installations were evaluated and rank ordered to validate the model. Sensitivity analysis was also performed to provide further insight into the decision making process. The results of this research prove that the model can be an effective decision analysis tool that provides the Air Force insight on the performance of its privatized utility systems.