An integrated multivariate approach for optimisation of IT/IS investment in conventional power plants

Abstract

Several organisations are seeking to determine the impact of Information Technology (IT)/Information Systems (IS) investments on their performance measures. Industrial units such as power plants are not exempt from this issue. This paper presents an integrated multivariate approach for assessment and optimisation of IT/IS investment in conventional power plants. The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach is used to assess the IT/IS investment impacts on the performance of power plants. Furthermore, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to verify and validate the findings of the DEA approach. IT/IS budget, number of IT/IS employees and number of PCs are used as input variables and total power generation and load factor are used as output variables. The proposed approach is applied to eight power plants and its advantages are discussed. This is the first study that presents a practical tool for policy making and optimisation with respect to IT/IS investment in conventional power plants. Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.