A method for group decision making with multi-granularity linguistic assessment information

This paper proposes a method to solve the group decision making (GDM) problems with multi-granularity linguistic assessment information. In the method, the multi-granularity linguistic information provided by experts is firstly expressed in the form of fuzzy numbers. In order to make the collective opinion close to each expert's opinion, a linear goal programming model is constructed to integrate the fuzzy assessment information and to directly compute the collective ranking values of alternatives without the need of information transformation. Then, a fuzzy preference relation on the pairwise comparisons of the collective ranking values of alternatives is constructed using the dominance possibility degree of the comparison between the fuzzy numbers. By applying a non-dominance choice degree to this fuzzy preference relation, the ranking of alternatives is determined and the most desirable alternative(s) is selected. An example is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed method and its advantages. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.