An outranking method for multi-criteria decision making with duplex linguistic information

An outranking method for duplex linguistic multi-criteria decisions is presented. We define a duplex linguistic set that is especially suitable for describing a decision-maker's preference, and assess each alternative with respect to criteria using duplex linguistic sets in a multi-criteria decision-making problem. An outranking relation between the alternatives is introduced. This novel outranking relation is based on systematic comparison of assessments of the alternatives for each criterion. The dominance of the duplex linguistic sets plays a crucial role in this comparison. Finally, an outranking method similar to the Electre method is proposed to rank the alternatives. An example is provided to illustrate the procedure for the proposed method. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.