ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A general fuzzy TOPSIS model in multiple criteria

decision making
Iraj Mahdavi & Armaghan Heidarzade &
Bahram Sadeghpour-Gildeh & Nezam Mahdavi-Amiri
Received: 9 August 2007 / Accepted: 10 February 2009 / Published online: 14 March 2009
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009
Abstract Decision making is the process of finding the
best option among the feasible alternatives. In classical
multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, the
ratings and the weights of the criteria are known precisely.
Owning to vagueness of the decision data, the crisp data are
inadequate for real-life situations. Since human judgments
including preferences are often vague and cannot be ex-
pressed by exact numerical values, the application of fuzzy
concepts in decision making is deemed to be relevant. In
this paper, we proposed the application of a fuzzy distance
formula in order to compute a crisp value for the standard
deviation of fuzzy data. Then, we use this crisp value of the
standard deviation to normalize the fuzzy data using the
distance formula again. In our normalization approach, we
have enough flexibility to consider various types of fuzzy
numbers (such as triangular, trapezoidal, and interval). Final-
ly, we use the technique for order preference by similarity to
an ideal solution to determine the ranking order of the
alternatives. A numerical example from the literature is
solved to demonstrate this applicability of the proposed
model. We also compare our proposed approach with similar
methods in the literature using some examples with known
results and a number of randomly generated test problems.
The results point to the applicability of our method and
signify its effectiveness in identifying solutions.
Keywords TOPSIS
.
Fuzzy number
.
MCDM
.
Fuzzy
distance
.
Standard deviation
.
Normalization
1 Introduction
Decision making is the process of selecting a possible
course of action from a set of alternatives. In almost all
problems, the multiplicity of criteria for judging an alter-
native prevails. That is, for many problems, the decision
maker wants to attain more than one goal in selecting the
course of action while satisfying the constraints dictated by
environment processes and resources [1].
Technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal
solution (TOPSIS), known as a classical multiple criteria
decision-making (MCDM) method, has been developed by
Hwang and Yoon [2] for solving the MCDM problems. The
basic principle of the TOPSIS is that the chosen alternative
should have the shortest distance from the positive ideal
solution and the farthest distance from the negative ideal
solution. The TOPSIS introduces two reference points,
but it does not consider the relative importance of the
distances from these points. As the assessment values have
various types of vagueness/imprecision or subjectiveness,
one cannot always use the classical decision-making
techniques for these decision problems. In the past few
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420
DOI 10.1007/s00170-009-1971-5
I. Mahdavi (*)
Department of Industrial Engineering, College of Technology,
Mazandaran University of Science & Technology,
P.O. Box 734, Babol, Iran
e-mail: irajarash@rediffmail.com
A. Heidarzade
Department of Industrial Engineering, Payame noor University,
Sari, Iran
B. Sadeghpour-Gildeh
Department of Statistics, University of Mazandaran,
Babolsar, Iran
N. Mahdavi-Amiri
Faculty of Mathematical Sciences,
Sharif University of Technology,
Tehran, Iran
years, numerous attempts to handle this vagueness, impre-
cision, and subjectiveness have been carried out to apply
fuzzy set theory to multiple criteria evaluation methods [3
8 ]. The overall utility of the alternatives with respect to all
criteria is often represented by a fuzzy number, which is
named the fuzzy utility and is often referred to by fuzzy
multicriteria evaluation methods. The ranking of the
alternatives is based on the comparison of their corre-
sponding fuzzy utilities [4, 5, 9, 10]. Multicriteria evalua-
tion methods are used widely in fields such as information
project selection [10, 11], material selection [12], and many
other areas of management decision problems [1216]
and strategy selection problems [13, 1719]. Tsaur et al.
[20] first convert a fuzzy MCDM problem into a crisp one
via centroid defuzzification and then solve the non-fuzzy
MCDM problem using the TOPSIS. Chen and Tzeng [13]
transform a fuzzy MCDM problem into a crisp MCDM
problem using fuzzy integral. Instead of using distance,
they employ a gray relation grade to define the relative
closeness of each alternative. Chu [21, 22] also changes a
fuzzy MCDM problem into a crisp one and solves the crisp
MCDM problem using the TOPSIS. Differing from the
others, he first derives the membership functions of all the
weighted ratings in a weighted normalization decision
matrix using interval arithmetic of fuzzy numbers and then
defuzzifies them into crisp values using the ranking method
of mean of removals. Chen [14] extends the TOPSIS to
fuzzy group decision-making situations by defining a crisp
Euclidean distance between any two fuzzy numbers.
Triantaphyllou and Lin [23] develop a fuzzy version of
the TOPSIS based on fuzzy arithmetic operations, which
leads to a fuzzy relative closeness for each alternative.
Hsu and Chen [24] discuss an aggregation of fuzzy
opinions under group decision making. Li [25] proposes a
simple and efficient fuzzy model to deal with multi-judges/
MCDM problems in a fuzzy environment. Li [26] proposes
several linear programming models and methods for multi-
attribute decision making under intuitionistic fuzziness
where the concept of intuitionistic fuzzy sets is a general-
ization of the concept of fuzzy sets. Liang [27] incorporates
fuzzy set theory and the basic concepts of positive ideal and
negative ideal points and extends MCDM to a fuzzy
environment. ler and Odabai [28] propose a new fuzzy
multi-attribute decision-making method, which is suitable
for multiple attributive group decision-making problems in
a fuzzy environment, and the method can deal with the
problems of ranking and selection. Olson and Wu [29]
present a simulation of fuzzy multi-attribute models based
on the concept of gray relations, reflecting either interval
input or commonly used trapezoidal input. This model is a
simulated fuzzy MCDM model that can be applied to multi-
attribute decision-making problems effectively. Yeh et al.
[15] propose a fuzzy MCDM method based on the concepts
of positive ideal and negative ideal points to evaluate
performance of the bus companies. Despite the applicability
of these methods to many decision-making problems,
typical fuzzy multicriteria analyses require the comparison
of fuzzy numbers. However, the comparison process can
be quite complicated and may produce unreliable results
[15, 28, 30, 31]. Jahanshahloo et al. [32, 33] extend the
TOPSIS to decision-making problems with interval data
and fuzzy data.
Here, we first convert the decision matrix into a fuzzy
decision matrix and construct a weighted fuzzy decision
matrix once the decision makers fuzzy ratings have been
pooled. The new process of normalization by use of fuzzy
distance value and normal fuzzy deviation approach are
applied for normalization and detection of the crisp value.
According to the concept of TOPSIS, we define the fuzzy
positive ideal solution (FPIS) and the fuzzy negative ideal
solution (FNIS). Finally, a closeness coefficient is applied
to calculate the ranking order of all alternatives. The
higher value of the closeness coefficient indicates that
an alternative is closer to FPIS and farther from FNIS
simultaneously.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2
describes the basic definitions and notations concerning
fuzzy numbers and linguistic variables. In Section 3, we
propose an approach for normalization of the fuzzy data
using a fuzzy distance formula. We then present an
algorithm to extend TOPSIS to deal with fuzzy data. In
Section 4, the proposed algorithm is illustrated with seven
examples. Finally, the conclusions are pointed out in
Section 5.
2 Fuzzy numbers and linguistic variables
The representation of multiplication operation on two or
more fuzzy numbers is a useful tools for decision makers in
the fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making environment for
ranking all the candidate alternatives in selecting an optimal
one.
In this section, some basic definitions of fuzzy sets,
fuzzy numbers, and linguistic variables are reviewed from
Buckley [3], Kaufmann and Gupta [34], and Zadeh [68].
The basic definitions, commonly being used in fuzzy set
theory, are given in Appendix. Next, the definitions of
linguistic variable, D
pq
distance and standard deviation of a
fuzzy numbers being used here are given.
Definition 1 A linguistic variable is a variable whose value
is given in linguistic terms [9, 23]. Linguistic terms have
been found intuitively easy to use in expressing the
subjectiveness and/or qualitative imprecision of a decision
makers assessments [15, 23, 35].
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420 407
Definition 2 A fuzzy MCDM problem with m alternatives
and n criteria can be concisely expressed in a fuzzy
decision matrix as:
C
1
C
2
C
3
. . . C
n
~
D =
A
1
A
2
A
3
.
.
.
A
m
~
x
11
~
x
12
~
x
13
. . .
~
x
1n
~
x
21
~
x
22
~
x
23
. . .
~
x
2n
~
x
31
~
x
32
~
x
33
. . .
~
x
3n
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
~
x
m1
~
x
m2
~
x
m3
. . .
~
x
mn
_

_
_

_
;
(1)
~
W =
~
w
1
;
~
w
2
; . . . ;
~
w
n
[; [
where
~
x
ij
, i =1,2,,m, j =1,2,,n, and
~
w
j
, j =1,2,,n, are
linguistic fuzzy numbers. Note that
~
w
j
represents the weight
of the jth criterion, C
j
, and
~
x
ij
is the performance rating of
the ith alternative, A
i
, with respect to the jth criterion, C
j
,
evaluated by k evaluators. This study applies the method of
average value
~
x
ij
for k evaluators concerning the same
evaluation criteria, that is,
~
x
ij
=
1
k
v
~
x
1
ij

~
x
2
ij

~
x
k
ij
_ _
; (2)
where
~
x
p
ij
is the rating of alternative A
i
with respect to
criterion C
j
evaluated by the pth evaluator. The weighted
fuzzy decision matrix is:
~
V =
~
v
11
~
v
12
~
v
13

~
v
1n
~
v
21
~
v
22
~
v
23

~
v
2n
~
v
31
~
v
32
~
v
33

~
v
3n
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
~
v
m1
~
v
m2
~
v
m3

~
v
mn
_

_
_

_
=
~
w
1

~
x
11
~
w
2

~
x
12
. . .
~
w
j

~
x
1j
. . .
~
w
n

~
x
1n
~
w
1

~
x
21
~
w
2

~
x
22
. . .
~
w
j

~
x
2j
. . .
~
w
n

~
x
2j
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
~
w
1

~
x
i1
~
w
2

~
x
i2
. . .
~
w
j

~
x
ij
. . .
~
w
n

~
x
in
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
~
w
1

~
x
m1
~
w
2

~
x
m2
. . .
~
w
j

~
x
mj
. . .
~
w
n

~
x
mn
_

_
_

_
(3)
Definition 3 The D
p,q
distance, indexed by parameters 1<p
< and 0<q<1, between two fuzzy numbers and
~
b is a
nonnegative function given by [36]:
D
p;q
~
a;
~
b ( ) =
1 q ( )
_
1
0
a

a
b

p
da q
_
1
0
a

a
b

p
da
_ _1
p
; p < ;
1 q ( ) sup
0<a_1
a

a
b

_ _
q inf
0<a_1
a

a
b

_ _
; p = :
_

_
(4)
The analytical properties of D
p,q
depend on the first
parameter p, while the second parameter q of D
p,q
characterizes the subjective weight attributed to the end
points of the support, i.e., a

a
; a

a
_ _
of the fuzzy numbers. If
there is no reason for distinguishing any side of the fuzzy
numbers, D
p;
1
2
is recommended. Having q close to 1 results
in considering the right side of the support of the fuzzy
numbers more favorably.
Due to the use of standard deviation of fuzzy numbers in
the normalization process, p=2 is more useful in calculating
standard deviation, and hence, we assume that p=2. Since
the significance of the end points of the support of the
fuzzy numbers is assumed to be the same, then we consider
q =
1
2
. For triangular fuzzy numbers =(a
1
,a
2
,a
3
) and

b = b
1
; b
2
; b
3
( ), the above distance with p=2 and q =
1
2
is
then calculated as:
D
2;
1
2
~
a;
~
b ( ) =

1
6

3
i=1
b
i
a
i
( )
2
b
2
a
2
( )
2

i 1;2
b
i
a
i
( ) b
i1
a
i1
( )
_
_
_
_

_ : (5)
And if
~
a = a
1
; a
2
; a
3
; a
4
( ) and
~
b = b
1
; b
2
; b
3
; b
4
( )are
trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, the distance is calculated as:
D
2;
1
2
~
a;
~
b ( ) =

1
6

4
i=1
b
i
a
i
( )
2

i 1;3
b
i
a
i
( ) b
i1
a
i1
( )
_
_
_
_

_ :
(6)
Definition 4 The standard deviation of a fuzzy number is
obtained as [36]:
DS
j
=

1
n

D
2
2;
1
2
v
ij
;
~
v
j
);
_
_
(7)
408 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420
where
~
v
ij
, i =1,2,,m, j =1,2,,n are fuzzy numbers and
~
v
j
,
j =1,2,,n are the mean values of fuzzy numbers calculated
by:
~
v
j
=
1
n
v
n
i=1
~
v
ij
_ _
: (8)
Definition 5 The normalized weighted fuzzy decision
matrix, denoted by R, is:
R = r
ij
_
mn
: (9)
If
~
v
ij
, i =1,2,,m, j =1,2,n, are the fuzzy numbers in
the weighted fuzzy decision matrix, then the normalization
process can be performed by:
r
ij
=
D
p;q
~
v
ij
;
~
v
j
_ _
DS
j
; (10)
where
~
v
j
is the mean of the jth column in the weighted
fuzzy decision matrix, D
p;q
~
v
ij
;
~
v
j
_ _
and DS
j
are defined as in
Eqs. 4 and 7, respectively. For triangular and trapezoidal
fuzzy numbers, the D
p;q
~
v
ij
;
~
v
j
_ _
and DS
j
are defined as in
Eqs. 5 and 6, respectively. Note that the values of r
ij
in the
normalized weighted fuzzy decision matrix are crisp
numbers.
3 The proposed algorithm
Based on the discussions of Section 2, we now present an
algorithm for solving the MCDM problem using the fuzzy
TOPSIS with capability of general fuzzy numbers.
3.1 Algorithm GFTOPSIS-MCDM: general fuzzy TOPSIS
in MCDM
Step 1: Choose the linguistic ratings or fuzzy values (
~
x
ij
,
i =1,2,,m, j =1,2,,n), for alternatives with
respect to criteria and choose the appropriate
linguistic variables (
~
w
j
, j =1,2,n) as weights of
the criteria.
Step 2: Construct the weighted fuzzy decision matrix
~
V =
~
v
ij
_
mn
by Eq. 3.
Step 3: Determine the normalized weighted fuzzy decision
matrix R = r
ij
_
mn
using the following steps.
Step 3-1: Calculate the mean value of each
column of matrix
~
V by Eq. 8.
Step 3-2: Obtain the distance of each element of
matrix
~
V from mean value of the
corresponding column by Eq. 4.
Step 3-3: Identify the standard deviation of each
column of the matrix
~
V by Eq. 7.
Step 3-4: Obtain the absolute normalized fuzzy
value of each element by Eq. 10.
Step 3-5: Identify the sign of normalized fuzzy
values by steps 3-6, 3-7, and 3-8.
Step 3-6: Compute
max
as the maximal support
of components of
~
V. Identify the fuzzy
number
~
g
max
[for example, if compo-
nent of
~
V are triangular or trapezoidal
fuzzy numbers, then the fuzzy value of
~
g
max
becomes (
max
,
max
,
max
) or
(
max
,
max
,
max
,
max
), respectively].
Calculate the distance between each component of
~
V and
~
g
max
: D
i;j
= D
2;
1
2
~
v
ij
;
~
g
max
_ _
, i =1,2,,m and j =1,2,,n.
Calculate the distance between the mean value in each
column and
~
g
max
: D
j
= D
2;
1
2
~
v
j
;
~
g
max
_ _
, j =1,2,,n
Step 3-7: For j =1,2,...n do
For i =1,2,...m do
if D
ij
< D
j
then let D
ij
=D
ij
.
Step 3-8: Select the minimal value in matrix D
and add its absolute value to all
components of D. The result of this
step is the normalized weighted fuzzy
decision matrix. Note that the values
of the normalized weighted fuzzy
decision matrix are crisp numbers.
Step 4: TOPSIS: Determine the positive ideal solution
(PIS) and negative ideal solution (NIS) by:
PIS = Max
i
r
ij
; j J
_ _
Min
i
r
ij
; j J
/
_ _
= r
*
1
; r
*
2
; :::; r
*
n
_ _
;
NIS = Min
i
r
ij
; j J
_ _
Max
i
r
ij
; j J
/
_ _
= r

1
; r

2
; :::; r

n
_ _
;
where J is associated with benefit criteria, and J
is associated with the cost criteria.
Step 5: Calculate the separation measures, using the n-
dimensional Euclidean distance. The separation of
each alternative from the positive ideal solution is
given by:
d

i
=

n
j=1
r
ij
r
*
j
_ _
2
_ _1
2
; 1 _ i _ m:
Similarly, the separation from the negative ideal
solution is given by:
d

i
=

n
j=1
r
ij
r

j
_ _
2
_ _1
2
; 1 _ i _ m:
Step 6: Calculate the relative closeness to the ideal
solution. The relative closeness of alternative A
i
with respect to PIS is defined by:
CC
i*
=
d

i
d

i
d

i
; 1 _ i _ m:
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420 409
Since d

i
_ 0 and d

i
_ 0, then clearly, CC
i*

0; 1 [ [.
Step 7: Rank the preference order. For ranking alterna-
tives using this index, we can rank alternatives in
decreasing order.
4 Numerical illustrations
Here, first we work out a numerical example, taken from
[37], to illustrate the GFTOPSIS-MCDM algorithm for
solving the decision-making problems with trapezoidal
fuzzy data and then compare the performance of our
method with similar methods in the literature.
4.1 Numerical example
A high-technology manufacturing company desires to
select a suitable material supplier to purchase the key
components of new products [37]. After preliminary
screening, five candidates (A
1
, A
2
, A
3
, A
4
, A
5
) remain for
further evaluation. A committee of three decision makers,
D
1
, D
2
, and D
3
, has been formed to select the most suitable
supplier. Five benefit criteria are considered:
1. profitability of supplier (C
1
),
2. relationship closeness (C
2
),
3. technological capability (C
3
),
4. conformance quality (C
4
), and
5. conflict resolution (C
5
).
The hierarchical structure of this decision problem is
shown in Fig. 1. We apply our fuzzy TOPSIS algorithm
(algorithm GFTOPSIS-MCDM) to solve this problem. We
now give a summary of the computational procedure.
Three decision makers use the linguistic weighting
variables shown in Table 1 to assess the importance of the
criteria. The importance weights of the criteria determined
by these three decision makers are shown in Table 2.
Decision makers use the linguistic rating variables
shown in Table 3 to evaluate the ratings of candidates with
respect to each criterion. The ratings of the five candidates
by the decision makers under the various criteria are shown
in Table 4.
The linguistic evaluations shown in Tables 2 and 4 are
converted into trapezoidal fuzzy numbers to construct the
fuzzy decision matrix and determine the fuzzy weight of
each criterion, as given in Table 5.
The weighted fuzzy decision matrix and the mean value
of fuzzy numbers in each column are constructed as in
Table 6.
The distance value of each element and the standard
deviation of each column of matrix
~
V with the corre-
sponding mean value have been shown in Table 7.
The absolute standard normal value of each element of
matrix
~
V is given in Table 8.
The maximum support of the fuzzy numbers in matrix
~
V
is
max
=10 and the fuzzy number of
max
is (10, 10, 10,
Fig. 1 Hierarchical structure of decision problem
Table 1 Linguistic variables for the importance weight of each
criterion
Very low (VL) (0; 0; 0.1; 0.2)
Low (L) (0.1; 0.2; 0.2; 0.3)
Medium low (ML) (0.2; 0.3; 0.4; 0.5)
Medium (M) (0.4; 0.5; 0.5; 0.6)
Medium high (MH) (0.5; 0.6; 0.7; 0.8)
High (H) (0.7; 0.8; 0.8; 0.9)
Very high (VH) (0.8; 0.9; 1.0; 1.0)
Table 3 Linguistic variables for the ratings
Very poor (VP) (0; 0; 1; 2)
Poor (P) (1; 2; 2; 3)
Medium poor (MP) (2; 3; 4; 5)
Fair (F) (4; 5; 5; 6)
Medium good (MG) (5; 6; 7; 8)
Good (G) (7; 8; 8; 9)
Very good (VG) (8; 9; 10; 10)
Table 2 Importance weights of the criteria from three decision
makers
Criteria Decision makers
D
1
D
2
D
3
C
1
H H H
C
2
VH VH VH
C
3
VH VH H
C
4
H H H
C
5
H H H
410 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420
10). We calculated distance value of each element
~
V and
corresponding mean value in each column with the fuzzy
number of
max
to achieve the sign of each element. The
result is shown in Table 9.
The minimum negative value of Table 9 is 3.9554 and
its absolute value is added to all the elements of the above
matrix. The result of this step is the normalized weighted
fuzzy decision matrix and is given in Table 10.
The positive ideal (PIS) and negative ideal (NIS)
solutions in the normalized weighted fuzzy decision matrix
are determined:
PIS = 6:9597; 7:5316; 6:8237; 6:8985; 6:5919 [ [
NIS = 1:4678; 2:0570; 0:9571; 0:5468; 0 [ [:
The calculated distance of each A
i
, i =1,2,,5 from PIS
and NIS with respect to each criterion, respectively, are
shown in Tables 11 and 12.
The calculated d

i
and d

i
of five possible suppliers A
i
, i =
1,2,,5 and the closeness coefficient of each supplier are
shown in Table 13.
According to the closeness coefficient, the ranking order
of all the alternatives can be determined. In this case, the
best selection is candidate A
2
. The five alternatives are
ordered as A
2
, A
3
, A
4
, A
1
, and A
5
.
4.2 Comparison results
Here, we compare our proposed GFTOPSIS-MCDM
algorithm with similar methods in two stages. At the first
stage, six numerical examples with three alternatives and
two criteria are used based on known results of Kuo et al.
[38]. Here, we compare our algorithm with the three
methods given by Chen and Hwang [5], Li [25], and Chen
[14], respectively. In the first example, the preference
orders of the three alternatives with respect to the first
criterion are equal, and the ranking order of the three
candidates with respect to the second criterion is A
3
, A
2
, and
A
1
. Consequently, the total ranking of the alternatives is A
3
,
A
2
, and A
1
. The results of the algorithms are shown in
Table 14. We see that our proposed method and the method
of Li [25] both find the correct solution, but the ones by
Chen and Hwang [5] and Chen [14] fail to do so. The
second example shows that preference of the alternatives is
A
2
, A
3
, and A
1
. The results, shown in Table 15, indicate that
the correct solution is found only by our method, and the
other three methods obtain an incorrect result. The ranking
order of the third example, shown in Table 16, is A
3
, A
2
,
Table 4 Rating of the five candidates by decision makers under
various criteria
Criteria Suppliers Decision makers
D
1
D
2
D
3
C
1
A
1
MG MG MG
A
2
G G G
A
3
VG VG G
A
4
G G G
A
5
MG MG MG
C
2
A
1
MG MG VG
A
2
VG VG VG
A
3
VG G G
A
4
G G MG
A
5
MG G G
C
3
A
1
G G G
A
2
VG VG VG
A
3
VG VG G
A
4
MG MG G
A
5
MG MG MG
C
4
A
1
G G G
A
2
G VG VG
A
3
VG VG VG
A
4
G G G
A
5
MG MG G
C
5
A
1
G G G
A
2
VG VG VG
A
3
G VG G
A
4
G G VG
A
5
MG MG MG
Table 5 Fuzzy decision matrix and fuzzy weights of five candidates
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
(5,6,7,8) (5,7,8,10) (7,8,8,9) (7,8,8,9) (7,8,8,9)
A
2
(7,8,8,9) (8,9,10,10) (8,9,10,10) (7,8.7,9.3,10) (8,9,10,10)
A
3
(7,8.7,9.3,10) (7,8.3,8.7,10) (7,8.7,9.3,10) (8,9,10,10) (7,8.3,8.7,10)
A
4
(7,8,8,9) (5,7.3,7.7,9) (5,6.7,7.3,9) (7,8,8,9) (7,8.3,8.7,10)
A
5
(5,6,7,8) (5,7.3,7.7,9) (5,6,7,8) (5,6.7,7.3,9) (5,6,7,8)
Weight (0.7,0.8,0.8,0.9) (0.8,0.9,1.0,1.0) (0.7,0.87,0.93,1.0) (0.7,0.8,0.8,0.9) (0.7,0.8,0.8,0.9)
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420 411
Table 6 The weighted fuzzy decision matrix
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
(3.5,4.8,5.6,7.2) (4,6.3,8,10) (4.9,6.96,7.44,9) (4.9,6.4,6.4,8.1) (4.9,6.4,6.4,8.1)
A
2
(4.9,6.4,6.4,8.1) (6.4,8.1,10,10) (5.6,7.83,9.3,10) (4.9,6.96,7.44,9) (5.6,7.2,8,9)
A
3
(4.9,6.96,7.44,9) (5.6,7.47,8.7,10) (4.9,7.569,8.649,10) (5.6,7.2,8,9) (4.9,6.64,6.96,9)
A
4
(4.9,6.4,6.4,8.1) (4,6.57,7.7,9) (3.5,5.829,6.789,9) (4.9,6.4,6.4,8.1) (4.9,6.64,6.96,9)
A
5
(3.5,4.8,5.6,7.2) (4,6.57,7.7,9) (3.5,5.22,6.51,8) (3.5,5.36,5.84,8.1) (3.5,4.8,5.6,7.2)
Mean value (4.2,5.872,6.368, 7.92) (4.8,7.002,8.42, 9.6) (4.48,6.6816,7.7376, 9.2) (4.76,6.464,6.816, 8.46) (4.76,6.336,6.784, 8.46)
Table 7 D
2;
1
2
~
v
ij
;
~
v
j
_ _
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
0.8217 0.5572 0.3052 0.2790 0.2732
A
2
0.4430 1.2118 1.1684 0.4749 0.8760
A
3
0.9924 0.5138 0.7677 0.8365 0.3088
A
4
0.4430 0.6433 0.7802 0.2790 0.3088
A
5
0.8217 0.6433 1.2213 0.9688 1.3143
DS
j
0.3303 0.3388 0.4073 0.2842 0.3323
Table 8 The absolute normalized value
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
2.4876 1.6444 0.7493 0.9818 0.8223
A
2
1.3412 3.5762 2.8684 1.6708 2.6365
A
3
3.0044 1.5163 1.8848 2.9432 0.9294
A
4
1.3412 1.8983 1.9155 0.9818 0.9294
A
5
2.4876 1.8983 2.9983 3.4086 3.9554
Table 9 The sign of each element
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
2.4876 1.6444 0.7493 0.9818 0.8223
A
2
1.3412 3.5762 2.8684 1.6708 2.6365
A
3
3.0044 1.5163 1.8848 2.9432 0.9294
A
4
1.3412 1.8983 1.9155 0.9818 0.9294
A
5
2.4876 1.8983 2.9983 3.4086 3.9554
Table 10 Normalized weighted fuzzy decision matrix
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
1.4678 2.3110 4.7047 2.9736 3.1330
A
2
5.2966 7.5316 6.8237 5.6262 6.5919
A
3
6.9597 5.4716 5.8401 6.8985 4.8848
A
4
5.2966 2.0570 2.0399 2.9736 4.8848
A
5
1.4678 2.0570 0.9571 0.5468 0
Table 11 The distance of each A
i
(i =1,2,,5) from PIS
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
30.1610 27.2547 4.4931 15.4048 11.9640
A
2
2.7650 0 0 1.6187 0
A
3
0 4.2436 0.9675 0 2.9142
A
4
2.7650 29.9712 22.8847 15.4048 2.9142
A
5
30.1610 29.9712 34.4170 40.3441 43.4531
Table 12 The distance of each A
i
(i =1,2,,5) from NIS
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
C
5
A
1
0 0.0645 14.0393 5.8894 9.8157
A
2
14.6597 29.9712 34.4170 25.8003 43.4531
A
3
30.1610 11.6595 23.8437 40.3441 23.8613
A
4
14.6597 0 1.1725 5.8894 23.8613
A
5
0 0 0 0 0
412 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420
and A
1
. The results show that only the method of Li [25]
finds the incorrect solution. The fourth example indicates
that the preferences of the alternatives are A
1
, A
2
, and A
3
.
The results, shown in Table 17, demonstrate that only the
solution of Li [25] is incorrect. In Table 18, we see that the
superiority of the alternatives is A
3
, A
2
, and A
1
. Our method
and the approach of Li [2] find the correct result, while the
methods of Chen and Hwang [5] and Chen [14] fail to do
so. The final example shows that preference of the
alternatives is A
3
, A
1
, and A
2
. The results, shown in
Table 19, indicate that the incorrect solution is found only
by Li [25], and the other three methods obtain the correct
result.
The above results, although based on a small number of
examples, showed that our proposed method found the
solution in all cases, while the methods of Chen and Hwang
[5], Li [25], and Chen [14] failed to find the solution in at
least two cases of the first six problems.
For a more extensive comparison, in the second stage,
we generated random problems of different sizes as
proposed in [23] (examples 6-1 and 6-2). The generated
problems are used to test the algorithms and compare the
results using the so-called contradiction rates as defined in
[23]. Three kinds of contradiction rates were recorded for
each case by running each case with 500 random
replications. The first contradiction rate is named as R1
and defined as the rate at which the fuzzy WSM [23] and
another fuzzy method disagree in the indication of the best
alternative. The second one is named as R2 and defined as
the rate at which the fuzzy WSM [23] and another fuzzy
method disagree on the entire ranking of the alternatives,
and the last one is named as R3 and defined as the rate at
which a method changes the indication of the best
alternative when a non-optimal alternative is replaced by a
worse alternative.
A MATLAB 7.0 computer program is written to generate
random data and to solve fuzzy TOPSIS problems with all
possible combinations of 3, 5, 7,, 21 alternatives and 3,
5, 7,, 21 criteria. As in [23], we first generate an m
(alternatives) by n (criteria) matrix with uniformly generat-
ed numbers between 1 and 9, using the MATLAB function,
random. We then round the components of the matrix,
Table 13 Values of d

i
, d

i
and CC
i*
d

i
d

i
CC
i*
Rank
A
1
89.2776 29.8088 0.2503 4
A
2
4.3846 148.3014 0.9713 1
A
3
8.1253 129.8695 0.9411 2
A
4
73.9409 45.5828 0.3814 3
A
5
178.3464 0 0 5
T
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2
(
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(
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0
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4
1
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1
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.
9
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1
0
2
2
0
.
4
2
6
3
1
1
0
.
9
9
9
9
9
8
2
A
3
(
0
.
6
7
3
,
0
.
8
7
8
,
1
)
1
(
0
.
5
,
0
.
8
,
1
)
1
0
.
8
4
1
5
1
1
0
.
9
9
1
0
3
1
0
.
4
2
6
3
1
1
1
.
0
0
1
1
A
3
A
2
A
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420 413
T
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C
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1
C
2
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[
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3
(
0
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3
0
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6
0
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9
8
3
0
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0
0
8
5
7
3
0
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3
2
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9
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3
0
3
A
2
(
0
.
5
5
,
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9
,
0
.
9
5
)
1
(
0
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5
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9
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5
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1
0
.
8
1
8
7
5
2
0
.
9
8
9
5
3
2
0
.
4
1
6
6
3
2
1
1
A
3
(
0
.
6
,
0
.
8
,
1
)
2
(
0
.
5
,
0
.
8
,
1
)
2
0
.
8
1
9
1
0
1
0
.
9
9
1
2
9
1
0
.
4
1
6
7
0
1
0
.
9
4
5
7
2
1
A
3
A
2
A
T
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1
C
2
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[
5
]
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[
2
5
]
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[
1
4
]
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1
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9
9
9
7
9
1
0
.
4
6
7
8
0
1
1
1
1
A
3
A
2
A
414 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420
T
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2
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4
4
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4
2
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2
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3
(
0
,
0
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1
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3
(
0
,
0
,
1
)
3
0
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0
6
8
7
5
3
0
2
0
.
2
8
9
9
3
0
3
1
A
3
A
2
A
T
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C
1
C
2
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[
5
]
L
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[
2
5
]
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[
1
4
]
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3
7
5
,
0
.
5
1
1
,
0
.
6
6
8
)
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
[
9
]
(
0
.
4
8
9
,
0
.
5
,
0
.
5
1
1
)
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
[
9
]
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
A
1
(
0
.
6
7
3
,
0
.
8
7
8
,
1
)
1
(
0
.
1
5
,
0
.
4
5
,
0
.
9
0
)
3
0
.
7
0
9
0
9
3
0
.
0
1
2
2
8
3
0
.
3
7
0
6
9
3
0
3
A
2
(
0
.
6
7
3
,
0
.
8
7
8
,
1
)
1
(
0
.
5
0
0
1
,
0
.
8
,
0
.
9
9
9
9
)
1
0
.
8
4
1
5
1
1
0
.
9
9
1
0
4
1
0
.
4
2
6
3
1
1
1
1
A
3
(
0
.
6
7
3
,
0
.
8
7
8
,
1
)
1
(
0
.
5
,
0
.
8
,
1
)
2
0
.
8
4
1
5
1
1
0
.
9
9
1
0
3
2
0
.
4
2
6
3
1
1
0
.
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
8
2
2
1
A
3
A
2
A
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420 415
using the MATLAB function, round. Finally, each compo-
nent a
ij
of the rounded matrix is turned into a triangular
fuzzy number (
ij
, a
ij
,
ij
) where,
a
ij
=
0:5 if a
ij
= 1;
a
ij
1 if a
ij
> 1;
:
_
and
~
a
ij
=
9 if a
ij
= 9;
a
ij
1 if a
ij
< 9;
:
_
as suggested by the Saaty scale [39].
Using the above procedure, we generated 100(=1010)
different examples. We executed the methods on these
examples using a laptop, 2.00-GHz speed with 1.00 GB of
RAM.
For the results obtained, the fuzzy WPM of Triantaphyl-
lou and Lin [23], the fuzzy TOPSIS method of Trianta-
phyllou and Lin [23], the approach proposed by Chen [14],
T
a
b
l
e
1
9
C
o
m
p
a
r
i
s
o
n
r
e
s
u
l
t
s
C
1
C
2
C
h
e
n
a
n
d
H
w
a
n
g
[
5
]
L
i
[
2
5
]
C
h
e
n
[
1
4
]
P
r
o
p
o
s
e
d
m
o
d
e
l
W
e
i
g
h
t
(
0
.
3
7
5
,
0
.
5
1
1
,
0
.
6
6
8
)
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
[
9
]
(
0
.
4
8
9
,
0
.
5
,
0
.
5
1
1
)
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
[
9
]
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
I
n
d
e
x
v
a
l
u
e
R
a
n
k
i
n
g
A
1
(
0
.
6
7
3
,
0
.
8
7
8
,
1
)
1
(
0
.
7
,
0
.
7
7
,
0
.
7
9
)
2
0
.
8
3
3
3
4
2
0
2
0
.
4
2
0
2
3
2
0
.
0
0
1
6
2
A
2
(
0
.
6
7
3
,
0
.
8
7
8
,
1
)
1
(
0
.
7
,
0
.
7
5
,
0
.
8
)
3
0
.
8
3
1
7
1
3
0
2
0
.
4
1
9
4
6
3
0
3
A
3
(
0
.
6
7
3
,
0
.
8
7
8
,
1
)
1
(
0
.
8
5
,
0
.
9
5
,
1
)
1
0
.
9
2
3
5
6
1
1
1
0
.
4
6
4
0
7
1
1
1
1
A
3
A
2
A
Fig. 2 Contradiction rate R1 when the number of alternatives is equal
to 3
Fig. 3 Contradiction rate R1 when the number of alternatives is equal
to 21
416 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420
Fig. 5 Contradiction rate R3 when the number of alternatives is equal
to 3
Fig. 4 Contradiction rate R2 when the number of alternatives is equal
to 3
( )
a
x ~
x
0
1
1
a
2
a
3
a
Fig. 7 A triangular fuzzy number
Fig. 6 Contradiction rate R3 when the number of alternatives is equal
to 21
1

0 x
A
~
A

+
A

( ) x
Fig. 9 An example of an a-cut
0
1
1
a
2
a
3
a 4
a
( )
a
x ~
Fig. 8 A trapezoidal fuzzy number
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420 417
and our methods are marked by TF-WPM, TF-TOPSIS,
CF-TOPSIS, and GFTOPSIS-MCDM, respectively. All
contradiction rates (R1, R2, and R3) are shown in Figs. 2, 3,
4, 5, and 6 with the corresponding numbers of criteria and
alternatives.
In Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, we observe that the
contradiction rate of our method has less error in compar-
ison with the other three methods. Moreover, our method is
shown to be robust in the sense that the contradiction rate is
not strongly affected by the increase in the number of
criteria.
5 Conclusions
We designed TOPSIS for fuzzy data and developed an
algorithm to determine the most preferred choice among all
possible alternatives. We converted the decision matrix into
a fuzzy decision matrix and constructed a weighted fuzzy
decision matrix once the decision makers fuzzy ratings
have been pooled. The fuzzy distance value and normal
fuzzy deviation approach were applied for normalization
and determination of the crisp values. Following the
approach of TOPSIS, we calculated the distance of each
alternative from PIS and NIS, respectively. Finally, a
closeness coefficient for each alternative was defined to
determine the ranking order of all alternatives. The higher
value of closeness coefficient would indicate that an
alternative is closer to PIS and farther from NIS simulta-
neously. We compared our proposed approach with similar
methods in the literature using some examples with known
results and a number of randomly generated test problems.
The results pointed to the applicability of our method and
signified its effectiveness in identifying solutions.
The proposed method presented here has applications in
various decision-making problems such as selection of a
suitable material supplier, information project selection,
location selection problem, and many other management
decision and strategic selection problems.
Acknowledgments The first and second authors thank Mazandaran
University of Science and Technology, the third author thanks the
University of Mazandaran, and the last author thanks Research
Council of Sharif University for supporting this work.
Appendix
Definition A1
A fuzzy set in a universe of discourse X is characterized
by a membership function

(x) which associates with each

element x in X a real number in the interval [0,1]. The
function value

(x) is termed as the grade of membership

of x in [35].
Definition A2
A fuzzy number is a fuzzy convex subset of the real line
satisfying the following conditions:
(a)

(x) is piecewise continuous;

(b)

(x) is normalized, that is, there exists m R with

(m)=1, where m is called the mean value of [3,

35].
Definition A3
A triangular fuzzy number can be defined by a triplet (a
1
,
a
2
, a
3
). Its conceptual schema and mathematical form are
shown by Eq. 11:
m
~
a
x ( ) =
0; x < a
1
xa
1
a
2
a
1
; a
1
< x _ a
2
a
3
x
a
3
a
2
; a
2
< x _ a
3
0; a
3
< x:
:
_

_
(11)
A triangular fuzzy number in the universe of discourse
X that conforms to this definition is shown in Fig. 7.
Definition A4
A trapezoidal fuzzy number can be defined by a
quadruplet (a
1,
a
2
, a
3
, a
4
). Its conceptual schema and
mathematical form are shown by Eq. 12:
m
~
a
x ( ) =
0; x _ a
1
xa
1
a
2
a
1
; a
1
< x _ a
2
1; a
2
< x < a
3
a
3
x
a
3
a
4
; a
3
< x _ a
4
0; a
4
> x:
:
_

_
(12)
A trapezoidal fuzzy number in the universe of
discourse X that conforms to this definition is shown in
Fig. 8.
Definition A5
The -cut,

, and strong -cut,

+
, of the fuzzy set in
the universe of discourse X are defined by:
~
A
a
= x m
~
A
x ( ) _ a; x X

_ _
; where a 0; 1 [ [ (13)
~
A
a
= x m
~
A
x ( ) > a; x X

_ _
; where a 0; 1 [ [: (14)
The lower and upper points of any -cut,

, are
represented by inf

and sup

, respectively, and we
418 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 45:406420
suppose that both are finite. For convenience, we denote inf

by A

a
and sup

by A

a
(see Fig. 9).
Definition A6
Assuming that both and
~
b are fuzzy numbers and l R,
the notions of fuzzy sum, , fuzzy product by a real
number, , and fuzzy product, , are defined as follows
[34]:
m ~
a
~
b ( )
z ( ) = sup min m
~
a
x ( ); m
~
b
y ( )
_ _
: x; y ( ) R
2
and x y = z
_ _
m
lv
~
a ( )
z ( ) =
~
a
z
l
_ _
; l ,= 0
I
0
z ( ); l = 0
:
_
(where I{0}(Z) is the indicator function of ordinary set
{0}).
m ~
a
~
b ( )
z ( ) = sup min
~
a x ( );
~
b y ( ) ( ) : x; y ( ) R
2
and x y = z
_ _
:
Let and
~
b be two positive fuzzy numbers, for all
[0,1]. The basic operations on positive fuzzy numbers
with -cut operator are as follows:
~
a
~
b ( )
a
= a

a
b

a
; a

a
b

a
_
~
a
~
b ( )
a
= a

a
b

a
; a

a
b

a
_
and if l R 0 , we have: l v
~
a ( )
a
= la
a
, that is,
l v
~
a ( )
a
= la

a
; la

a
_
; if l > 0
l v
~
a ( )
a
= la

a
; la

a
_
; if l < 0:
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