In this study, a new parametric method is proposed to rank intuitionistic fuzzy numbers in a general form. One of the advantages of the proposed method is that the decision maker’s idea is taken into account by selecting appropriate amounts of decision level and hesitation degree parameters. In some illustrative examples, the superiority of the proposed method over some other approaches is demonstrated. Furthermore, to show the ability of the method to solve intuitionistic fuzzy optimization problems, the proposed method is applied to solve intuitionistic fuzzy network data envelopment analysis (IFNDEA) problems. Also, in three appropriate examples, the validity of the suggested method and its capacity to solve real-world problems are illustrated.