TOPSIS for bi-level MODM problems

TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution) is a multiple criteria method to identify solutions from a finite set of alternatives based upon simultaneous minimization of distance from an ideal point and maximization of distance from a nadir point. This paper proposes a fuzzy TOPSIS algorithm to solve bi-level multi-objective decision-making (BL-MODM) problems, and in which the objective function at each level are non-linear functions which are to be maximized. The proposed model for getting the satisfactory solution of the BL-MODM problems includes the membership functions for the upper level decision variables vector with possible tolerances, the membership function of the distance function from the positive ideal solution (PIS) and the membership function of the distance function from the negative ideal solution (NIS). A numerical illustrative example is given to clarify the proposed TOPSIS approach of this paper.     

一种基于前景理论和改进TOPSIS的模糊随机多准则决策方法及其应用

针对准则值为区间灰数直觉模糊数、准则权系数部分已知以及自然状态出现概率为灰数的多准则决策问题,提出一种结合前景理论和改进TOPSIS的决策方法。该方法首先定义了灰色直觉模糊数的前景价值函数和概率权重函数,并利用前景理论构建出前景决策矩阵;接着从两个方面对传统TOPSIS决策方法进行改进:(1)过定义方案间综合差异的概念,采用离差最大化思想,建立平均综合差异最大化规划模型,给出了一种兼顾主客观权重信息确定准则权系数的新方法;(2)用灰关联替换备选方案与正负理想方案的距离,据此刻画了各方案与正负理想方案的贴近度。进而利用改进TOPSIS决策方法中的综合贴近度对方案进行了排序。最后通过实例验证了该方法的有效性。     

A fuzzy closeness approach to fuzzy multi-attribute decision making

The aim of this paper is to develop a new fuzzy closeness (FC) methodology for multi-attribute decision making (MADM) in fuzzy environments, which is an important research field in decision science and operations research. The TOPSIS method based on an aggregating function representing “closeness to the ideal solution” is one of the well-known MADM methods. However, while the highest ranked alternative by the TOPSIS method is the best in terms of its ranking index, this does not mean that it is always the closest to the ideal solution. Furthermore, the TOPSIS method presumes crisp data while fuzziness is inherent in decision data and decision making processes, so that fuzzy ratings using linguistic variables are better suited for assessing decision alternatives. In this paper, a new FC method for MADM under fuzzy environments is developed by introducing a multi-attribute ranking index based on the particular measure of closeness to the ideal solution, which is developed from the fuzzy weighted Minkowski distance used as an aggregating function in a compromise programming method. The FC method of compromise ranking determines a compromise solution, providing a maximum “group utility” for the “majority” and a minimum individual regret for the “opponent”. A real example of a personnel selection problem is examined to demonstrate the implementation process of the method proposed in this paper.     

Combining compound linguistic ordinal scale and cognitive pairwise comparison in the rectified fuzzy TOPSIS method for group decision making

Group decision making is the process to explore the best choice among the screened alternatives under predefined criteria with corresponding weights from assessment of a group of decision makers. The Fuzzy TOPSIS taking an evaluated fuzzy decision matrix as input is a popular tool to analyze the ideal alternative. This research, however, finds that the classical fuzzy TOPSIS produces a misleading result due to some inappropriate definitions, and proposes the rectified fuzzy TOPSIS addressing two technical problems. As the decision accuracy also depends on the evaluation quality of the fuzzy decision matrix comprising rating scores and weights, this research applies compound linguistic ordinal scale as the fuzzy rating scale for expert judgments, and cognitive pairwise comparison for determining the fuzzy weights. The numerical case of a robot selection problem demonstrates the hybrid approach leading to the much reliable result for decision making, comparing with the conventional fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process and TOPSIS.     

基于模糊证据推理及改进TOPSIS的多属性群决策方法

针对不同识别框架多属性群决策问题属性准则度量的不确定性、随机性,定义基于梯形模糊数表征的属性准则评价等级相似度量,求解专家决策权重的最优解。对公共识别框架备选方案属性准则采用模糊证据推理过程综合专家评价等级置信度信息;利用可严格区分属性准则评价等级的相似度量,改进TOPSIS方法中备选方案属性准则评价等级置信度距离因子,获取备选方案逼近正负理想解的贴近度。实例分析以某通信企业电信产品市场竞争力评估为例,说明基于模糊证据推理、改进TOPSIS的多属性群决策问题求解过程,从属性准则专家模糊评价等级置信度集中获取直观的待评估产品市场竞争力排序结果,验证该方法解决此类决策问题的可行性与有效性。     

A Personnel Selection Problem in Healthcare System Using Fuzzy-TOPSIS Approach

The methods of multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) are increasingly becoming the most desired tools for making daily decisions in various fields of human endeavors. Staff employment in any sector requires a thorough evaluation of the applicant before selection to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. Besides, healthcare is one of the most complicated organizations dealing with human lives. This paper has developed a staff selection model considering a fuzzy environment by using the technique for order preference similar to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) method. For the delivery and promotion of quality healthcare systems, medical staff selection is crucial to the system. Therefore, the study evaluates medical staff by using the expert''s linguistic judgement under the criteria of skill, experience and ability to respond to a problem. The expert''s vagueness in judgments has been represented by using fuzzy triangular numbers. The study determines the closeness coefficient, the measures of separation and the ideal solutions of the TOPSIS method. The most appropriate medical staff are ranked and selected based on the available criteria. The Fuzzy-TOPSIS method is simple and can help other organizations achieve proper ranking, evaluation and selection of qualified candidates, as it takes imprecise information into account.     

Extended VIKOR method in comparison with outranking methods

The VIKOR method was developed to solve MCDM problems with conflicting and noncommensurable (different units) criteria, assuming that compromising is acceptable for conflict resolution, the decision maker wants a solution that is the closest to the ideal, and the alternatives are evaluated according to all established criteria. This method focuses on ranking and selecting from a set of alternatives in the presence of conflicting criteria, and on proposing compromise solution (one or more). The VIKOR method is extended with a stability analysis determining the weight stability intervals and with trade-offs analysis. The extended VIKOR method is compared with three multicriteria decision making methods: TOPSIS, PROMETHEE, and ELECTRE. A numerical example illustrates an application of the VIKOR method, and the results by all four considered methods are compared.     

The interval-valued fuzzy TOPSIS method and experimental analysis

The purpose of this paper is to extend the TOPSIS method based on interval-valued fuzzy sets in decision analysis. Hwang and Yoon developed the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) in 1981. TOPSIS has been widely used to rank the preference order of alternatives and determine the optimal choice. Considering the fact that it is difficult to precisely attach the numerical measures to the relative importance of the attributes and to the impacts of the alternatives on these attributes in some cases, therefore, the TOPSIS method has been extended for interval-valued fuzzy data in this paper. In addition, a comprehensive experimental analysis to observe the interval-valued fuzzy TOPSIS results yielded by different distance measures is presented. A comparative analysis of interval-valued fuzzy TOPSIS rankings from each distance measure is illustrated with discussions on consistency rates, contradiction rates, and average Spearman correlation coefficients. Finally, a second-order regression model is provided to highlight the effects of the number of alternatives, the number of attributes, and distance measures on average Spearmen correlation coefficients.     

基于Hausdauff度量的模糊TOPSIS方法研究

针对模糊多属性决策中的模糊 TOPSIS方法 ,提出了一种基于 Hausdauff度量的模糊 TOPSIS方法 .首先由模糊极大集与模糊极小集确定模糊多属性决策问题的理想解与负理想解 ,进而由 Hausdauff度量获得不同备选方案到理想解与负理想解的距离及其贴近度 ,根据贴近度指标对方案进行排序 ,为决策者提供决策支持 .最后以 L-R梯形模糊数为例进行了实例研究 .     

Extensions of the multicriteria analysis with pairwise comparison under a fuzzy environment

Multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems often involve a complex decision process in which multiple requirements and fuzzy conditions have to be taken into consideration simultaneously. The existing approaches for solving this problem in a fuzzy environment are complex. Combining the concepts of grey relation and pairwise comparison, a new fuzzy MCDM method is proposed. First, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to construct fuzzy weights of all criteria. Then, linguistic terms characterized by L–R triangular fuzzy numbers are used to denote the evaluation values of all alternatives versus subjective and objective criteria. Finally, the aggregation fuzzy assessments of different alternatives are ranked to determine the best selection. Furthermore, this paper uses a numerical example of location selection to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method. The study results show that this method is an effective means for tackling MCDM problems in a fuzzy environment.     

Two novel FMCDM methods for alternative-fuel buses selection

In this paper, we consider the problem of alternative-fuel buses selection using two novel fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. Several types of fuels are considered as fuel modes, i.e., electricity, fuel cell (hydrogen), and methanol. For the purpose of determining appropriate fuel buses, many factors including quantitative and qualitative ones such as efficiency, price, and capability must be taken into account. In the first proposed method, linguistic variables are used to assess the ratings and weights for factors. These linguistic ratings can be expressed in trapezoidal or triangular fuzzy numbers. Then, a hierarchical MCDM method based on fuzzy-sets theory is proposed to deal with the fuel buses selection problem. To simultaneously determine the ranking order of all alternatives based on the concept of the TOPSIS by calculating the distances to the both fuzzy positive-ideal solution (FPIS) and fuzzy negative-ideal solution (FNIS), a closeness coefficient is defined. In the second presented method we extend preference selection index (PSI) method for fuzzy environment. In this method performance ratings of criteria evaluate by linguistic variable which can be expressed in trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Finally, an example is shown to highlight the procedure of the proposed methods and compare the results of these methods with each other.     

Comparison of first aggregation and last aggregation in fuzzy group TOPSIS

The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), one of the major multi attribute decision making (MADM) techniques, ranks the alternatives according to their distances from the ideal and the negative ideal solution. In real evaluation and decision making problems, it is vital to involve several people and experts from different functional areas in decision making process. Also under many conditions, crisp data are inadequate to model real-life situations, since human judgments including preferences are often vague and cannot estimate his preference with an exact numerical value. Therefore aggregation of fuzzy concept, group decision making and TOPSIS methods that we denote “fuzzy group TOPSIS” is more practical than original TOPSIS.     

Combining grey relation and TOPSIS concepts for selecting an expatriate host country

As international corporate activities increase, their staffing involves more strategic concerns. However, foreign assignments have many differences, and dissatisfaction with the host country is a known cause of expatriate failure. From the point of view of an expatriate candidate, the decision of whether to take an expatriate assignment can be regarded as a FMCDM (fuzzy multiple criteria decision making) problem. This paper describes a fuzzy AHP (fuzzy analytic hierarchy process) to determine the weighting of subjective judgments. Using the Sugeno integral for λ-fuzzy measure, and using the nonadditive fuzzy integral technique to evaluate the synthetic utility values of the alternatives and the fuzzy weights, then the best host country alternative can be derived with the grey relation model. The authors further combine the grey relation model based on the concepts of TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution) to evaluate and select the best alternative. A real case of expatriate assignment decision-making was used to demonstrate that the grey relation model combined with the ideas of TOPSIS results in a satisfactory and effective evaluation.     

A fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making model based on lower and upper boundaries

Many researches generalized classical multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods under uncertain environment for fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM), such that Chen, Liang, Raj and Kumar, and Wang et al. extended TOPSIS into FMCDM methods. However, there are some problems in their methods. For instance, intersection of fuzzy numbers is a null set, calculation is a complex work for approximate triangular fuzzy numbers or trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, or criteria values of ideal/anti-ideal solution may not exist in feasible alternatives. In addition, steps of the methods are too many to realize or apply for decision-makers. To improve above shortcomings, we propose a FMCDM method based on lower and upper boundaries. Practically, the proposed method is not totally generalized TOPSIS under fuzzy environment. Furthermore, the method is aggregated into a FMCDM model to simplify FMCDM computation. Since the FMCDM model can be clearly expressed by a simple formulation, it is easy to utilize the model to solve FMCDM problems.     

Using the Hamming distance to extend TOPSIS in a fuzzy environment

Considering the fact that, in some cases, determining precisely the exact value of attributes is difficult and that their values can be considered as fuzzy data, this paper extends the TOPSIS method for dealing with fuzzy data, and an algorithm for determining the best choice among all possible choices when the data are fuzzy is also presented. In this approach, to identify the fuzzy ideal solution and fuzzy negative ideal solution, one of the Yager indices which is used for ordering fuzzy quantities in [0, 1] is applied. Using Yager’s index leads to a procedure for choosing fuzzy ideal and negative ideal solutions directly from the data for observed alternatives. Then, the Hamming distance is proposed for calculating the distance between two triangular fuzzy numbers. Finally, an application is given, to clarify the main results developed in the paper.     

模糊多属性决策的直觉模糊集方法

基于直觉模糊集理论,提出了一种新的TOPSIS方法来研究模糊多属性决策问题。首先,根据直觉模糊集的几何意义,定义了两个直觉模糊集之间的距离,且每个备选方案的评价值用直觉模糊值表示;然后,根据TOPSIS原理,通过计算备选方案到直觉模糊正理想解和负理想解的距离,来确定备选方案的综合评价指数,以此判断方案的优劣次序。最后,通过一个具体实例说明该方法的有效性和具体应用过程。     

FMMSIC: a hybrid fuzzy based decision support system for MMS (in order to estimate interrelationships between criteria)

One of the main tasks in exploitation of ore-body is to select a suitable mining method. In mining method selection (MMS) problems, a decision procedure has to choose the best exploitation method that satisfies the evaluation criteria. It is generally hard to find a mining method that meets all the criteria simultaneously, therefore a good compromise solution is preferred as the final selection. Furthermore, the MMS problem is an inherently uncertain activity. To deal with the uncertainty, this paper presents an hybrid decision support system based on the fuzzy multi attribute decision making, named the fuzzy mining method selection with interrelation criteria (FMMSIC). FMMSIC models the relative weights of criteria by combining the fuzzy analytic network process and fuzzy entropy, and discusses using these hybrid techniques to determine the overall weights. Subsequently, the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution method was modified by various normalization norms according to the MMS problem condition. Finally, to illustrate how the FMMSIC is used for the MMS problems, an empirical study of a real case is conducted. It shows by means of an application that the FMMSIC is well suited as a decision support system for the MMS.     

基于TOPSIS的模糊群体多属性决策方法

针对模糊群体多属性决策问题,给出一种基于理想点法(TOPSIS)的多属性决策方法.方法先用三角模糊数的形式表示专家评价值的模糊性和不确定性,而后考虑了专家在不同评价属性中的重要程度和意见的相似度,并将专家意见进行集结得到专家群体关于方案集的模糊决策矩阵,最后定义了三角模糊数形式的正负理想方案,通过计算各方案与正负理想方案的距离以及各方案与理想点的相对接近度,最终确定最优方案.通过实例分析说明了该方法的可行性和有效性.     

A new methodology for fuzzy multi-attribute group decision making with multi-granularity and non-homogeneous information

The aim of this paper is to develop a new methodology for solving fuzzy multi-attribute group decision making problems with non-homogeneous information, including multi-granular linguistic term sets, fuzzy numbers, interval values and real numbers. In this methodology, different distances are defined to measure differences between alternatives and the ideal solution as well as the negative ideal solution. A relative closeness method is developed by introducing the multi-attribute ranking index based on the particular measure of closeness to the IS. The proposed method determines a compromise solution for the group, providing a maximum “group utility” for the “majority” and a minimum of an individual regret for the “opponent”. The implementation process, effectiveness and feasibility of the method proposed in this paper are illustrated with a real example of the missile weapon system design project selection.     

Projection method for multiple criteria group decision making with incomplete weight information in linguistic setting

Multiple criteria group decision making (MCGDM) problems have become a very active research field over the last decade. Many practical problems are often characterized by MCGDM. The aim of this paper is to develop a new approach for MCGDM problems with incomplete weight information in linguistic setting based on the projection method. Firstly, to reflect the reality accurately, a method to determine the weights of decision makers in linguistic setting is proposed by calculating the degree of similarity between 2-tuple linguistic decision matrix given by each decision maker and the average 2-tuple linguistic decision matrix. By using the weights of decision makers, all individual 2-tuple linguistic decision matrices are aggregated into a collective one. Then, to determine the weight vector of criteria, we establish a non-linear optimization model based on the basic ideal of the projection method, i.e., the optimal alternative should have the largest projection on the 2-tuple linguistic positive ideal solution (TLPIS). Calculate the 2-tuple linguistic projection of each alternative on the TLPIS and rank all the alternatives according to the 2-tuple linguistic projection value. Finally, an illustrative example is given to demonstrate the calculation process of the proposed method, and the validity is verified by comparing the evaluation results of the proposed method with that of the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method.