Dynamic programming methodology for multi-criteria group decision-making under ordinal preferences

A method of minimizing rankings inconsistency is proposed for a decision-making problem with rankings of alternatives given by multiple decision makers according to multiple criteria. For each criteria, at first, the total inconsistency between the rankings of all alternatives for the group and the ones for every decision maker is defined after the decision maker weights in respect to the criteria are considered. Similarly, the total inconsistency between their final rankings for the group and the ones under every criteria is determined after the criteria weights are taken into account. Then two nonlinear integer programming models minimizing respectively the two total inconsistencies above are developed and then transformed to two dynamic programming models to obtain separately the rankings of all alternatives for the group with respect to each criteria and their final rankings. A supplier selection case illustrated the proposed method, and some discussions on the results verified its effectiveness. This work develops a new measurement of ordinal preferences’ inconsistency in multi-criteria group decision-making （MCGDM） and extends the cook-seiford social selection function to MCGDM considering weights of criteria and decision makers and can obtain unique ranking result.

An estimation approach for dividable multiattribute utility of housing via questionnaires of consumers’ ordinal multicriteria preferences

Compared with ordinary commercial products, housing has many special characteristics including the multi-function characteristic. How to evaluate the multi-functional nature of housing is very useful in both theory and in application, yet it is often ignored in China. This paper introduces an approach to estimate the multicriteria function of housing using multiattribute utility theory (MAUT) based on consumers’ ordinal multicriteria preferences as determined via questionnaires. When compared with the classic framework in which MAUT is applied, this approach needs less prior information and subjective comparisons and thus can allay many of the operational difficulties involved in assessment. Some potential applications to the China housing market are also discussed.