A new rank sensitivity metric for decision support

Assessing the change in the relative performance of competing systems across a factor space generated by a combination of input variables is a common problem in decision making. We propose a new metric to assess the sensitivity of the performance rankings of a set of options when input variables are changed. The proposed metric is useful in foreseeing the impact of changing values of input variables on an output metric in complex systems through computer simulation experiments. Numerical characteristics of the proposed metric are illustrated and discussed and an application is provided to illustrate use of our metric in decision support.