A Fuzzy Best-Worst Multi-Criteria Group Decision-Making Method

Abstract

Fuzzy best-worst method (BWM) has emerged as an efficient choice because of its comparison consistency to model the real-life and the consideration of fuzziness and uncertainties of decision-makers (DMs). However, how to extend the fuzzy BWM to group decision-making (GDM) environment has become an important topic because there are usually more than one decision-maker. For the GDM, decision makers may use different concepts to establish their individual assessment information due to the difference of cultural background and priori knowledge. To overcome this challenge, this article proposed a novel fuzzy best-worst multi-criteria group decision-making method to solve the GDM problem with multi-granular linguistic approach, which is an effective and promising technique to tackle this issue. In the proposed method, the selectable multi-granularity linguistic term sets (LTS) are firstly provided for experts to expressed their individual assessment information. Then, the improved fuzzy BWM is employed to calculate the weights of criteria with the form of fuzzy numbers. In current several studies using the BWM for group decision-making, only two unified best and worst criteria are given, which cannot reflect the evaluation of the best and worst criteria by different experts, resulting in the omission of information. Moreover, the difference between the best and worst criteria initially given and the experts' ideas will cause the experts to be inaccurate in the comparison of each criterion. Therefore, in this article, in order not to omit too much information, each expert will determine the best and the worst criteria. Each expert's assessment information which is based on his/her best and worst criteria is integrated into two vectors. What's more, an improved input-based consistency measurement is proposed, which can provide the DMs with a clear guideline on the revision of the inconsistent judgement(s). Finally, two examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method.INDEX TERMS Fuzzy best-worst method, group decision-making, linguistic assessment information, multi-granular fuzzy linguistic context, multi-criteria decision-making

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A Hybrid Novel Fuzzy MCDM Method for Comprehensive Performance Evaluation of Pumped Storage Power Station in China

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A Group Decision-Making Approach in MCDM: An Application of the Multichoice Best–Worst Method

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