Multi-Criteria Decision Making Methods and Fuzzy Sets

Abstract

Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) is one of the well-known topics of decision making. Fuzzy logic provides a useful way to approach a MCDM problem. Very often in MCDM problems, data are imprecise and fuzzy. In a real-world decision situation, the application of the classic MCDM method may face serious practical constraints, because of the criteria containing imprecision or vagueness inherent in the information. For these cases, fuzzy multi-attribute decision making (MADM) and fuzzy multi-objective decision making (MODM) methods have been developed. In this chapter, crisp MADM and MODM methods are first summarized briefly and then the diffusion of the fuzzy set theory into these methods is explained. Some examples of recently published papers on fuzzy MADM and MODM are given.