ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Planning, design and operation of high-value infrastructure (i.e., infrastructure that cannot be replaced easily or at an acceptable cost) is central to society. This type of systems has both complex mechanical sub-systems and entangled interactions among stakeholders, which evolve with time. Furthermore, two essential characteristics should be fulfilled: sustainability and the permanent preservation/addition of value to the stakeholders. Addressing these issues is only possible by recognizing that any engineering structure is designed and built to operate in a dynamic and changing environment that cannot be fully predicted at design. Thus, successful designs ought to account for provisions that can handle uncertain but predictable futures, and that allows the system to cope with new and unplanned events. The need to address these problems has attracted interest in concepts such as resilience, robustness, changeability, adaptability etc. All these concepts are part of a more general idea: flexibility. The objective of this paper is to discuss the need and importance of flexibility in engineering design and to present a roadmap that may open new spaces for a new engineering design paradigm that contributes to the efficient development of high-value infrastructure. The paper discusses current practices in infrastructure flexibility valuation and proposes an extension to those approaches.
