2-tuple linguistic Muirhead mean operators for multiple attribute group decision making and its application to supplier selection

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Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop some 2-tuple linguistic aggregation operators based on Muirhead mean (MM), which is combined with multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM) and applied the proposed MAGDM model for supplier selection under 2-tuple linguistic environment.Design/methodology/approach– The supplier selection problem can be regarded as a typical MAGDM problem, in which the decision information should be aggregated. In this paper, the authors investigate the MAGDM problems with 2-tuple linguistic information based on traditional MM operator. The MM operator is a well-known mean type aggregation operator, which has some particular advantages for aggregating multi-dimension arguments. The prominent characteristic of the MM operator is that it can capture the whole interrelationship among the multi-input arguments. Motivated by this idea, in this paper, the authors develop the 2-tuple linguistic Muirhead mean (2TLMM) operator and the 2-tuple linguistic dual Muirhead mean (2TLDMM) operator for aggregating the 2-tuple linguistic information, respectively. Some desirable properties and special cases are discussed in detail. Based on which, two approaches to deal with MAGDM problems under 2-tuple linguistic information environment are developed. Finally, a numerical example concerns the supplier selection problem is provided to illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed methods.Findings– The results show that the proposed can solve the MAGDM problems within the context of 2-tuple linguistic information, in which the attributes are existing interaction phenomenon. Some 2-tuple aggregation operators based on MM have been developed. A case study of supplier selection is provided to illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed methods. The results show that the proposed methods are useful to aggregate the linguistic decision information in which the attributes are not independent so as to select the most suitable supplier.Practical implications– The proposed methods can solve the 2-tuple linguistic MAGDM problem, in which the interactions exist among the attributes. Therefore, it can be used to supplier selection problems and other similar management decision problems.Originality/value– The paper develop some 2-tuple aggregation operators based on MM, and further present two methods based on the proposed operators for solving MAGDM problems. It is useful to deal with multiple attribute interaction decision-making problems and suitable to solve a variety of management decision-making applications.