Approach to group decision making based on determining the weights of experts by using projection method

The aim of this paper is to present a new approach for determining weights of experts in the group decision making problems. Group decision making has become a very active research field over the last decade. Especially, the investigation to determine weights of experts for group decision making has attracted great interests from researchers recently and some approaches have been developed. In this paper, the weights of experts are determined in the group decision environment via projection method. First of all, the average decision of all individual decisions is defined as the ideal decision. After that, the weight of expert is determined by the projection of individual decision on the ideal decision. By using the weights of experts, all individual decisions are aggregate into a collective decision. Then an ideal solution of alternatives of the collective decision, expressed by a vector, is determined. Further, the preference order of alternatives are ranked in accordance with the projections of alternatives on the ideal solution. Comparisons with an extended TOPSIS method are also made. Finally, an example is provided to illustrate the developed approach. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All Tights reserved.