A new method of Assessment based on Fuzzy Ranking and Aggregated Weights (AFRAW) for MCDM problems under type-2 fuzzy environment

Abstract

Fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods and problems have increasingly been considered in the past years. Type-1 fuzzy sets are usually used by decision-makers (DMs) to express their evaluations in the process of decision-making. Interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FSs), which are extensions of type-1 fuzzy sets, have more degrees of flexibility in modeling of uncertainty. In this research, a new ranking method to calculate the ranking values of interval type-2 fuzzy sets is propo sed. A comparison is performed to show the efficiency of this ranking method. Using the proposed ranking method and the arithmetic operations of IT2FSs, a new method of A ssessment based on Fuzzy Ranking and Aggregated Weights (AFRAW) is developed for multi-criteria group decision-making. To obtain more realistic and practical weights for the criteria, the subjective weights expressed by DMs and objective weights calculated based on a deviation-based method are combined, and the aggregated weights are used in the proposed method. A numerical example related to assessment of suppliers in a supply chain and selecting the best one is used to illustrate the procedure of the proposed method. Moreover, a comparison and a sensitivity analysis are performed in this study. The results of these analyses show the validity and stability of the proposed method.