Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture Using Multiobjective Decision Analysis

The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) of the Department of Homeland Security was created to increase the United States’ ability to detect radiological and nuclear (RN) material that could be obtained and then used by terrorists. The office coordinates the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA), an international and interagency strategy for detecting, analyzing, and reporting of RN materials outside of regulatory control. In 2012, the Government Accountability Office expressed concern about the prioritization of GNDA resources as well as the documentation of GNDA improvements over time. As a result, the DNDO asked the National Research Council (NRC) for advice on how to develop performance measures and metrics to quantitatively assess the GNDA's effectiveness. The result of the NRC study was a report titled “Performance Metrics for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture.” In the report, the committee created a notional strategic planning framework for evaluating the performance of the GNDA. Using the data from the public report, multiobjective decision analysis techniques, and notional data from our research, this paper expands the NRC framework to a complete value model and demonstrates that it is possible to evaluate the potential performance of the GNDA over time and use the model to evaluate the cost effectiveness of potential improvements.