IX. Maximize Benefits
Seeking to find an even better resolution, the parties now request improvements from Smartsettle. Another package is generated as illustrated in Figure 12 and Figure 13.
Smartsettle has generated an improvement to the Baseline (Tentative) solution. The Improvement is being compared to Riverside’s final proposal. According to the ratings, the improvement is better by 90 points. If both parties accept it, it will become the new Baseline (Tentative) solution.
The improvement generated by Smartsettle is worth nearly $100,000 more to Riverside than the current Baseline (previously called Tentative) agreement. Riverside readily accepts it. Because Smartsettle attempts to divide benefits fairly to each party, DEC sees similar improvements and also accepts the improved package. In this hypothetical, the improved package generated by Smartsettle becomes the framework for a final, written settlement agreement.
The generated improvement, plotted on the efficiency frontier, is better by 90 points for each party. In this hypothetical research case, for ease of comparison, the same scale was used to measure satisfaction for each party. In application of Smartsettle to real cases, satisfaction scales are chosen independently by each party. Resulting ratings remain confidential and are never compared by anybody.