Determination of Objective Weights Using a New Method Based on the Removal Effects of Criteria (MEREC)

Zenonas Turskis,Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas,Maghsoud Amiri,Mehdi Keshavarz-Ghorabaee,Jurgita Antucheviciene

doi:10.3390/sym13040525

Zenonas Turskis, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/sym13040525

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Abstract

The weights of criteria in multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems are essential elements that can significantly affect the results. Accordingly, researchers developed and presented several methods to determine criteria weights. Weighting methods could be objective, subjective, and integrated. This study introduces a new method, called MEREC (MEthod based on the Removal Effects of Criteria), to determine criteria’ objective weights. This method uses a novel idea for weighting criteria. After systematically introducing the method, we present some computational analyses to confirm the efficiency of the MEREC. Firstly, an illustrative example demonstrates the procedure of the MEREC for calculation of the weights of criteria. Secondly, a comparative analysis is presented through an example for validation of the introduced method’s results. Additionally, we perform a simulation-based analysis to verify the reliability of MEREC and the stability of its results. The data of the MCDM problems generated for making this analysis follow a prevalent symmetric distribution (normal distribution). We compare the results of the MEREC with some other objective weighting methods in this analysis, and the analysis of means (ANOM) for variances shows the stability of its results. The conducted analyses demonstrate that the MEREC is efficient to determine objective weights of criteria.

Highlights

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is an essential and interdisciplinary field in operations research that has been taken into consideration in the past years
multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) is a branch of MCDM that deals with issues defined by discrete decision variables, a limited number of alternatives and attributes [2,3,4,5]
This study proposes a new objective weighting method, called MEREC (MEthod based on the Removal Effects of Criteria), for determining criteria weights

Summary

Introduction

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is an essential and interdisciplinary field in operations research that has been taken into consideration in the past years. This field can be categorized into two different branches: multi-objective decision-making (MODM) and multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) [1]. MADM is a branch of MCDM that deals with issues defined by discrete decision variables, a limited number of alternatives and attributes [2,3,4,5]. Many researchers have usually used the two terms: MADM and MCDM. We use the term MCDM to refer to the current research problems

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