A multiple attribute group decision making approach for solving problems with the assessment of preference relations

A number of theoretical approaches to preference relations are used for multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problems, and fuzzy preference relations is one of them. When more than one person is interested in the same MADM problem, it then becomes a multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problem. For both MADM and MAGDM problems, consistency among the preference relations is very important to the result of the final decision. The research reported in this paper is based on a procedure that uses a fuzzy preference relations matrix which satisfies additive consistency. This matrix is used to solve multiple attribute group decision making problems. In group decision problems, the assessment provided by different experts may diverge considerably. Therefore, the proposed procedure also takes a heterogeneous group of experts into consideration. Moreover, the methods used to construct the decision matrix and determine the attribution of weight are both introduced. Finally a numerical example is used to test the proposed approach; and the results illustrate that the method is simple, effective, and practical.