Title: Multiple attribute decision making: approach integrating subjective and objective information

Authors: Quan Zhang, Jason C.H. Chen, Yan-Qun He, Jian Ma, Duan-Ning Zhou

Addresses: School of Business Administration, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258, USA. School of Business Administration, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258, USA. School of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. School of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. College of Business and Public Administration, Eastern Washington University, Spokane, WA 99202, USA

Abstract: This paper proposes a subjective and objective integrated approach to solve multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problems with preference information on alternatives. In this approach, decision-makers| subjective preference information on alternatives can be represented in eight different formats: preference orderings, utility values, fuzzy preference relation, linguistic terms, normal preference relation, selected subset, fuzzy selected subset and pairwise comparison. The various formats on preference information are uniformed into the format on fuzzy preference relation and aggregated into a social subjective fuzzy preference relation. To reflect both the decision-makers| subjective preference information and the objective information from the decision matrix, the resulting social subjective fuzzy preference relation and the objective fuzzy preference relation derived from the decision matrix are integrated into a synthetic fuzzy preference relation. Based on the synthetic fuzzy preference relation, the fuzzy majority method is used to obtain the quantifier guided dominance degree (QGDD) and the quantifier guided non-dominance degree (QGNDD) of each alternative. According to the QGDD and QGNDD of the alternatives, the selection of them is done. An example is also used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach.

Keywords: decision analysis; multiple attribute decision making; preference information; fuzzy preference relation; integration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2003.003460

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2003 Vol.5 No.4, pp.338 - 361

Published online: 09 Sep 2003 *

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