A practical approach to fuzzy utilities comparison in fuzzy multicriteria analysis

Comparing fuzzy utilities of the decision alternatives for determining their ranking plays a critical role in fuzzy multicriteria analysis. Existing fuzzy ranking methods may not always be suitable for practical decision problems of large size, due to counterintuitive ranking outcomes or considerable computational effort. This paper presents a practical approach to address the fuzzy ranking problem. The approach combines the merits of two prominent concepts individually used in the literature: the fuzzy reference set and the degree of dominance. As a result, the decisive information emitted by the fuzzy utilities is sensibly used, and satisfactory ranking outcomes can be achieved. The approach is computationally simple and its underlying concepts are logically sound and comprehensible. A comparative study is conducted on all benchmark cases used in the literature to examine its performance on rationality and discriminatory ability. A new performance measure is introduced to examine its discriminating performance in differentiating between fuzzy utilities. The comparison result shows that the practical approach compares favorably with comparable methods examined. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.