Improved ranking approaches for fuzzy numbers and their applications to multi-criteria decision making problems

• Main Authors: Luu Quoc Dat, 劉國達
• Other Authors: Shuo-Yan Chou
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/35228640303833655310

博士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 工業管理系 === 101 === Ranking fuzzy numbers plays an important role in decision analysis and applications. The last few decades have seen a large number of approaches investigated for ranking fuzzy numbers such as maximizing set and minimizing set concept, integral value, centroid point, distance approach, deviation degree, and magnitude concepts. Nevertheless, some of these approaches are non-intuitive and even inconsistent. Therefore, this study indicates the shortcomings of several existing ranking approaches and proposes improved ranking approaches for fuzzy numbers to overcome their shortcomings. Based on the proposed ranking approaches, an extension of fuzzy multi-criteria decision making is developed for supporting the medical provider selection and evaluation selection process. In the proposed fuzzy multi-criteria decision making model, the ratings of alternatives and importance weight of criteria for medical providers are expressed in linguistic terms. This study then can also obtain the membership functions of the final fuzzy evaluation value in the proposed model. To make the procedure easier and more practical, the normalized weighted ratings are defuzzified into crisp values by using the improved ranking approaches to determine the ranking order of alternatives. This study also uses a numerical example to demonstrate the applicability and advantages of the proposed multi-criteria decision making model.