A new flexible and reliable IVF-TOPSIS method based on uncertainty risk reduction in decision making process

• Published in: Applied soft computing 2014-10, Vol.23, p.509-520
• Main Authors: Mokhtarian, M.N., Sadi-nezhad, S., Makui, A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Facility location selection; Interval Valued Fuzzy Sets (IVFSs); MCDM; Municipal wet waste landfill; TOPSIS method; Type-1 fuzzy sets
• ISSN: 1568-4946; 1872-9681
• DOI: 10.1016/j.asoc.2014.05.035

•The authors propose the concepts of uncertainty and the risk of uncertainty for the IVFNs.•The authors present a measurement procedure for the risk of uncertainty related to the IVFNs.•The authors enter the concepts of uncertainty and the risk of uncertainty in the IVF-MCDM problems.•The authors propose an IVF-TOPSIS method based on uncertainty risk reduction in decision making process.•The authors apply the proposed method for solving a real facility location selection problem. One of the challenging and famous types of MCDM (Multiple Criteria Decision Making) problems that includes both quantitative and qualitative criteria is Facility location selection problem. For the common fuzzy MCDM problems (Type-1 fuzzy MCDM problems), the ratings of alternatives with respect to the criteria or/and the values of criteria weights, are expressed by the common fuzzy numbers. However, in the majority of cases, determining the exact membership degree for each element of the fuzzy sets which are considered for the ratings of alternatives with respect to the criteria or/and the values of criteria weights as a number in interval [0,1], is difficult. In this situation, the ratings of alternatives with respect to the criteria or/and the values of criteria weights, are expressed by the IVFNs (Interval Valued Fuzzy Numbers) and thereby the IVF-MCDM (Interval Valued Fuzzy MCDM) methods should be used. In this paper, the authors propose an IVF-TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method based on uncertainty risk reduction in decision making process. By using this method, the reliability of the captured decisions in an IVF decision making problem is significantly increased. The proposed method is applied for solving a real application problem related to selecting a suitable location for digging some pits for municipal wet waste landfill in one of the largest cities in Iran. The proposed method is also compared with another IVF-TOPSIS method. As a result, the authors concluded that in addition to benefits such as simplicity and ease of use that exist in the previous IVF-TOPSIS methods, the proposed method has a significant reliability and flexibility and is practical for facility location selection problems and other IVF-MCDM problems.