Consistency based completion approaches of incomplete preference relations in uncertain decision contexts.

Uncertainty, hesitation and vagueness are inherent to human beings when articulating opinions and preferences. Therefore in decision making situations it might well be the case that experts are unable to express their opinions in an accurate way. Under these circumstances, various families of preference relations (PRs) have been proposed (linguistic, intuitionistic and interval fuzzy PRs) to allow the experts to manifest some degree of hesitation when enunciating their opinions. An extreme case of uncertainty happens when an expert is unable to differentiate the degree up to which one preference is preferred to another. Henceforth, incomplete preference relations are possible. It is worth to bear in mind that incomplete information does not mean low quality information, on the contrary, in many occasions experts might prefer no to provide information in other to keep consistency. Consequently mechanism to deal with incomplete information in decision making are necessary. This contribution presents the main consistency based completion approaches to estimate incomplete preference values in linguistic, intuitionistic and interval fuzzy PRs

Managing Incomplete Preference Relations in Decision Making: A Review and Future Trends

In decision making, situations where all experts are able to efficiently express their preferences over all the available options are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, the above scenario requires all experts to possess a precise or sufficient level of knowledge of the whole problem to tackle, including the ability to discriminate the degree up to which some options are better than others. These assumptions can be seen unrealistic in many decision making situations, especially those involving a large number of alternatives to choose from and/or conflicting and dynamic sources of information. Some methodologies widely adopted in these situations are to discard or to rate more negatively those experts that provide preferences with missing values. However, incomplete information is not equivalent to low quality information, and consequently these methodologies could lead to biased or even bad solutions since useful information might not being taken properly into account in the decision process. Therefore, alternative approaches to manage incomplete preference relations that estimates the missing information in decision making are desirable and possible. This paper presents and analyses methods and processes developed on this area towards the estimation of missing preferences in decision making, and highlights some areas for future research

Goal programming approaches to deriving interval fuzzy preference relations

This article investigates the consistency of interval fuzzy preference relations based on interval arithmetic, and new definitions are introduced for additive consistent, multiplicative consistent and weakly transitive interval fuzzy preference relations. Transformation functions are put forward to convert normalized interval weights into consistent interval fuzzy preference relations. By analyzing the relationship between interval weights and consistent interval fuzzy preference relations, goal-programming-based models are developed for deriving interval weights from interval fuzzy preference relations for both individual and group decision-making situations. The proposed models are illustrated by a numerical example and an international exchange doctoral student selection problem

Incomplete interval fuzzy preference relations and their applications

This paper investigates incomplete interval fuzzy preference relations. A characterization, which is proposed by Herrera-Viedma et al. (2004), of the additive consistency property of the fuzzy preference relations is extended to a more general case. This property is further generalized to interval fuzzy preference relations (IFPRs) based on additive transitivity. Subsequently, we examine how to characterize IFPR. Using these new characterizations, we propose a method to construct an additive consistent IFPR from a set of n − 1 preference data and an estimation algorithm for acceptable incomplete IFPRs with more known elements. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and practicality of the solution process

Consistency test and weight generation for additive interval fuzzy preference relations

Some simple yet pragmatic methods of consistency test are developed to check whether an interval fuzzy preference relation is consistent. Based on the definition of additive consistent fuzzy preference relations proposed by Tanino (Fuzzy Sets Syst 12:117–131, 1984), a study is carried out to examine the correspondence between the element and weight vector of a fuzzy preference relation. Then, a revised approach is proposed to obtain priority weights from a fuzzy preference relation. A revised definition is put forward for additive consistent interval fuzzy preference relations. Subsequently, linear programming models are established to generate interval priority weights for additive interval fuzzy preference relations. A practical procedure is proposed to solve group decision problems with additive interval fuzzy preference relations. Theoretic analysis and numerical examples demonstrate that the proposed methods are more accurate than those in Xu and Chen (Eur J Oper Res 184:266–280, 2008b)

Interval linguistic fuzzy decision making in perspective of preference relations

Consistency analysis is a crucial topic for preference relations. This paper studies the consistency of interval linguistic fuzzy preference relations (ILFPRs) using the constrained interval linguistic arithmetic and introduces a new consistency definition. Then, several properties of this definition are researched. Meanwhile, the connection between this concept and a previous one is discussed. Following this concept, programming models for judging the consistency and for deriving consistent ILFPRs are constructed, respectively. Considering the case that incomplete ILFPRs may be obtained, a programming model for obtaining missing judgments following the consistency discussion is built. Afterwards, the consensus for group decision making (GDM) is studied and a model for adjusting individual ILFPRs to reach the consensus threshold is established. Consequently, an interactive procedure for GDM with ILFPRs is presented. A practical problem is provided to illustrate the utilization of the new algorithm and comparative discussion is offered

A systematic review on multi-criteria group decision-making methods based on weights: analysis and classification scheme

Interest in group decision-making (GDM) has been increasing prominently over the last decade. Access to global databases, sophisticated sensors which can obtain multiple inputs or complex problems requiring opinions from several experts have driven interest in data aggregation. Consequently, the field has been widely studied from several viewpoints and multiple approaches have been proposed. Nevertheless, there is a lack of general framework. Moreover, this problem is exacerbated in the case of experts’ weighting methods, one of the most widely-used techniques to deal with multiple source aggregation. This lack of general classification scheme, or a guide to assist expert knowledge, leads to ambiguity or misreading for readers, who may be overwhelmed by the large amount of unclassified information currently available. To invert this situation, a general GDM framework is presented which divides and classifies all data aggregation techniques, focusing on and expanding the classification of experts’ weighting methods in terms of analysis type by carrying out an in-depth literature review. Results are not only classified but analysed and discussed regarding multiple characteristics, such as MCDMs in which they are applied, type of data used, ideal solutions considered or when they are applied. Furthermore, general requirements supplement this analysis such as initial influence, or component division considerations. As a result, this paper provides not only a general classification scheme and a detailed analysis of experts’ weighting methods but also a road map for researchers working on GDM topics or a guide for experts who use these methods. Furthermore, six significant contributions for future research pathways are provided in the conclusions.The first author acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Universities [grant number FPU18/01471]. The second and third author wish to recognize their support from the Serra Hunter program. Finally, this work was supported by the Catalan agency AGAUR through its research group support program (2017SGR00227). This research is part of the R&D project IAQ4EDU, reference no. PID2020-117366RB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Partner selection in agile supply chains: A fuzzy intelligent approach

Partner selection is a fundamental issue in supply chain management as it contributes significantly to overall supply chain performance. However, such decision-making is problematic due to the need to consider both tangible and intangible factors, which cause vagueness, ambiguity and complexity. This paper proposes a new fuzzy intelligent approach for partner selection in agile supply chains by using fuzzy set theory in combination with radial basis function artificial neural network. Using these two approaches in combination enables the model to classify potential partners in the qualification phase of partner selection efficiently and effectively using very large amounts of both qualitative and quantitative data. The paper includes a worked empirical application of the model with data from 84 representative companies within the Chinese electrical components and equipment industry, to demonstrate its suitability for helping organisational decision-makers in partner selection

Robust competence assessment for job assignment

International audienceAllocating the right person to a task or job is a key issue for improving quality and performance of achievements, usually addressed using the concept of "competences". Nevertheless, providing an accurate assessment of the competences of an individual may be in practice a difficult task. We suggest in this paper to model the uncertainty on the competences possessed by a person using a possibility distribution, and the imprecision on the competences required for a task using a fuzzy constraint, taking into account the possible interactions between competences using a Choquet Integral. As a difference with comparable approaches, we then suggest to perform the allocation of persons to jobs using a Robust Optimisation approach, allowing to minimize the risk taken by the decision maker. We first apply this framework to the problem of selecting a candidate within n for a job, then extend the method to the problem of selecting c candidates for j jobs (c ≥ j) using the leximin criterion