WHY FUZZY ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS APPROACH FOR TRANSPORT PROBLEMS?

The evaluation of transport projects has become increasingly complex. Different aspects have to be taken into account and the consequences of the problems are usually far reaching and the different policy alternatives are numerous and difficult to predict. Several pressure or action groups have also emerged causing an even more complex decision making process. The use of multi criteria analysis for the evaluation of transport projects has increased due to this increasing complexity of the problem situation. At the same time, the importance of stakeholders within this evaluation process should have been recognized. Researches on transport projects are generally carried out to provide information to policymakers that have to operate within restrictive parameters (political, economical, social, etc…). Researchers should therefore take greater account of the different priorities of stakeholders such as policymakers, private enterprises and households. These stakeholders should be incorporated explicitly in the evaluation process. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is one of the Fuzzy Multiple Criteria Decision Making methods. It can be applied in a very broad range of applications of decision problems. Logistics, urban planning, public politics, marketing, finance, education, economics are a part of this wide application area. In transport subjects it can be used for the evaluation of transport policy measures or decision making problems. Due to its wide range application area, it has been an exciting research subject for many different field researchers. The aim of this paper is to introduce AHP method and to offer how to benefit it for the preference of urban planners in transport problems. This paper is composed of two main parts. First part consists of the literature survey regarding with the AHP and its application areas. The advantage of methods had been mentioned. Second part focuses on a sample application of AHP technique. The study uses AHP technique to determine the selection criteria in the transhipment port selection decision-making process. Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process, Multi criteria analysis, Transshipment port selection.

A study of regret and rejoicing and a new MCDM method based on them

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is one of the most widely used decision methodologies in the sciences, business, and engineering worlds. MCDM methods aim at improving the quality of decisions by making the process more explicit, rational, and efficient. One controversial problem is that some well-known MCDM methods, like the additive AHP methods and the ELECTRE II and III methods, may cause some types of rank reversal problems. Rank reversal means that the ranking between two alternatives might be reversed after some variation occurs to the decision problem, like adding a new alternative, dropping an old alternative or replacing a non-optimal alternative by a worse one etc. Usually such a rank reversal is undesirable for decision-making problems. If a method does allow it to happen, the validity of the method could be questioned. However, some recent studies indicate that rank reversals could also happen because of people’s rational preference reversal which may be caused by their emotional feelings, like regret and rejoicing. Since regret and rejoicing may play a pivotal role in evaluating alternatives in MCDM problems, sometimes the decision maker (DM) may want to anticipate these emotional feelings and consider them in the decision-making process. Most of the regret models in the literature use continuous functions to measure this emotional factor. This dissertation proposes to use an approach based on a linguistic scale and pairwise comparisons to measure a DM’s anticipated regret and rejoicing feelings. The approach is shown to exhibit some key advantages over existing approaches. Next a multiplicative MCDM model is adopted to aggregate the alternatives’ associated regret and rejoicing values with their performance values to get their final priorities and then rank them. A simulated numerical example is used to illustrate the process of the proposed method. Some sensitivity analyses which aim at examining how changes of regret and rejoicing values might affect the ranking results of the decision problems are also developed. Then a fuzzy version of the new method is introduced and illustrated by a numerical example. Finally, some concluding remarks are made. Ranking intransitivity and some other issues about the proposed method are analyzed too

UN ENFOQUE COGNITIVO DEL FHA PARA CORREGIR SESGOS EN EL JUICIO DE EXPERTOS: APLICACIÓN A UN CASO

El propósito de este trabajo es presentar un enfoque metodológico integrador que sirva de apoyo a la toma de decisiones. Hasta ahora la literatura científica ha producido principalmente trabajos de dos clases: análisis descriptivo, que se refiere a los procesos reales que caracterizan la valoración y selección de los individuos, y el análisis normativo, que analiza los procesos de selección realizados por individuos racionales idealizados. Entonces, cuando hablamos de un enfoque integrador, pretendemos desarrollar una metodología, que aun partiendo de instrumentos cuantitativos típicos del análisis normativo, tome también en consideración las implicancias cognitivo-comportamentales obtenidas por los especialistas en toma de decisión. Hemos desarrollado un modelo aplicativo basado en el análisis jerárquico fuzzy (FHA), en el que a las capacidades del proceso de jerarquía analítico (AHP) de racionalizar el proceso de decisión sin prescindir de las valoraciones, se añaden elementos de la teoría de conjuntos borrosos que permiten al decisor expresar la ambigüedad de su propia valoración. Este método corrige los juicios tomando en consideración los llamados sesgos cognitivos, es decir, distorsiones subjetivas relacionadas con la percepción de la utilidad y la incertidumbre. Por último, se ha llevado a cabo una experiencia para verificar el valor del modelo propuesto, los límites de su aplicabilidad y los posibles desarrollos futuros. Palabras clave: análisis jerárquico fuzzy, toma de decisión, enfoque cognitivo. Abstract This paper aims to propose a methodological integrated approach to support experts in decision making situation. Until now scientific literature has mainly produced works of two types: descriptive analysis, that talks about the real processes that characterize the evaluation and selection of individuals, and the normative analysis, that analyses the process of selection made by rational individuals. When we talk about an integrated approach, we try to develop a methodology, that even starting off of typical quantitative instruments of the normative analysis, also takes in consideration the cognitive side obtained by the specialists in decision making. We have developed an empirical model based on the fuzzy hierarchical analysis (FHA). In addition the capacities of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to rationalize the process of decision considering the evaluations, elements of the fuzzy set theory are considered in order to allow experts to express the ambiguity of their own evaluations. The proposed methodology corrects the judgments taking in consideration the so called cognitive biases, that is to say, subjective distortions related to the perception of utility and uncertainty. Finally, an experience has been carried out to verify the value of the proposed model, the limits of its applicability and possible future developments. Keywords: Fuzzy hierarchical analysis, Decision making, Cognitive approach

Dynamics under Uncertainty: Modeling Simulation and Complexity

The dynamics of systems have proven to be very powerful tools in understanding the behavior of different natural phenomena throughout the last two centuries. However, the attributes of natural systems are observed to deviate from their classical states due to the effect of different types of uncertainties. Actually, randomness and impreciseness are the two major sources of uncertainties in natural systems. Randomness is modeled by different stochastic processes and impreciseness could be modeled by fuzzy sets, rough sets, Dempster–Shafer theory, etc

Risk-based system to control safety level of flooded passenger ships

Predicting the consequences of flooding is a key issue that may help the ship master of a large passenger ship to make rational decisions in emergency situations. To this end, the Delphi Emergency Decision Support System (Delphi EDSS) has been designed and is under implementation to continuously assess ship's state of survivability. Analyses are performed by means of a time-domain simulation program, where transient stages of flooding are investigated and stored off-line for all the potential damage scenarios. The Delphi EDSS evaluates the ship risk level including the most important aspects related to safety state while establishing the time-to-capsize which is of primary concern for the safe evacuation of the damaged ship. The methodology is based on a scientific approach, setting an overall platform for rational assessment of non-survivability risk. Determination of the global risk level and its components requires solution of a multicriterial problem, where the level of importance of each criterion contributing to determination of a global risk index is combined with fuzzified contributors to risk calculated at lower levels

A multi criteria decision making methodology based novel model for supplier selection

Supplier selection and measurement of supplier performance are multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problems and have strategic importance for all industries. The study contains analyzed factors that are affecting the process of the supply chain concerning supplier performance. Supplier performance measures is a tool to determine whether suppliers are doing their job as expected. The importance of supplier performance measurement should not be underestimated due to direct and indirect productivity-related consequences. Supplier evaluation is a complex multiple criteria decision-making problem that is affected by several conflicting factors. Therefore, the measurement of supplier performance has been becoming crucial and critical throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the MCDM methods and propose a novel method to check how the performance of suppliers is being measured using three different methods. Qualification and final selection of the supplier can be done with a proposed novel model. In the study, the criteria are weighted with the Analytical Hierarchy Process, while TOPSIS and VIKOR methods are used to evaluate and rank the suppliers. Evaluating supplier performance, derive the importance of the main criteria and sub-criteria applied in decision-matrix to sort the suppliers according to the measurement of supplier performance criteria.No sponso

Coal fired power plant instrument

Coal fired is one of the most valuable sources that can be used to sustain the existence of life. Coal fired can be exploited in producing electricity. In Malaysia, there a few power plants that use coal fired as main source. To name a few, in Manjung there are coal fired plant produced 3100MW, in Tanjung Bin produced 2100MW and Jimah Power produced 1400MW. All these power plants located in South East Malaysia that used coal fired as main source. There are a lot of instrument specifically sensors and transducers applied in power plant. All these sensors and transducers used to monitor every single thing such as pressure, temperature, level and many other measurement parameters. The sensors and transducers that involved in monitoring the measurement parameters are pressure gauge, pressure transmitter, thermocouple, flow transmitter, proximity sensor, limit switch, radar, RTD and many more. Power plant applied process control system in order to link up the instruments and Human Machine Interface (HMI). HMI is a software application that presents information to an operator or user about the state of a process, and to accept and implement the operators control instructions. Typically information is displayed in a graphic format (Graphical User Interface or GUI) [1]. In general coal fired power plant or known as thermal power station is a power plant in which the prime mover steam driven. Water is heated to produce steam which drives the turbine as a result induced an electrical energy

Performance Measurement Model for the Supplier Selection Based on AHP

The performance of the supplier is a crucial factor for the success or failure of any company. Rational and effective decision making in terms of the supplier selection process can help the organization to optimize cost and quality functions. The nature of supplier selection processes is generally complex, especially when the company has a large variety of products and vendors. Over the years, several solutions and methods have emerged for addressing the supplier selection problem (SSP). Experience and studies have shown that there is no best way for evaluating and selecting a specific supplier process, but that it varies from one organization to another. The aim of this research is to demonstrate how a multiple attribute decision making approach can be effectively applied for the supplier selection process