Multi-criteria group decision making with fuzzy data:an extension of the VIKOR method

The VIKOR method is a multi-criteria decision making aid, which employs linear normalization to offer compromise solu- tions and has been successfully applied to various group decision making problems. However, the conventional VIKOR techniques used to integrate group judgments and the information loss arising from defuzzification are problematic and distort final outcomes. An improved integration method, which is optimization-based, is proposed. And it can handle fuzzy criteria values and weights. The precondition for accurately defuzzifying triangular fuzzy num- bers is identified. Several effective defuzzification procedures are proposed to improve the extant VIKOR, and a comprehensive evaluation framework is offered to aid multi-criteria group decision making. Finally, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the practicability of the proposed method.

AN INNOVATIVE ORDERS-OF-MAGNITUDE AHP APPROACH OF LEADING INDUSTRIES SELECTION:CASE STUDY OF JIANGBEI INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS IN CHINA

In current stage of China Industrial Transfer, how to select the leading industries is an extremely difficult decision. In this research, we study the selection problem of Jiangbei Industrial Clusters in Anhui Province. Total thirty-three industries can be transferred to Jiangbei Industrial Clusters, however due to limited capacity, Jiangbei Industrial Clusters can only accommodate a few of them. The difficulties of such decision include： 1） the decisions are qualitative within a complex and uncertain environment; 2） the number of alternatives is beyond the upper bound of comparing elements in general decision making methods. We introduce a new methodology-the Orders-of-Magnitude approach of the Analytic Hierarchy Process （OM-AHP） to solve such selection decision. The OM-AHP follows AHP philosophy to structure qualitative questions and uses ＂pivot＂ element to handle the situation when the alternatives become more than seven. By employing OM-AHP methodology, we found the modern logistics industry and ship ＆ marine equipment etc., are identified to be the leading industries; particularly, we recommend to give higher priority in modern logistics industry and the advanced equipment manufacturing industry, given these two industries could dramatically improve the overall comprehensive economic strength and significantly enhance competitive advantages of the Jiangbei Industrial Clusters.

A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK FOR SITE SELECTION AND BUSINESS FORECASTING USING ANP

This paper reports an on-going application of the Analytic Network Process （ANP） in the context of a non-profit organization： The Latin American Studies Association （LASA）. This institution organizes a large international conference every eighteen months and needs to estimate conference attendance in advance （for logistic purposes） as well as selecting a host city where the combination of hotel infrastructure, conference costs, and so on, makes it a sound financial choice. In this paper, ANP will be used to： first, create a model to predict the relative number of attendees to the forthcoming 2009 LASA conference; and second, to create a Benefit-Cost-Risk （BCR） model to select the most suitable Latin American city as the conference site, This paper shows how the combination of these two ANP models, one for prediction and one for selection, can be used together for effective decision-making.

Application of Drone in Solving Last Mile Parcel Delivery

The article is about solving the last mile delivery problem in rural town or village. We want to test the drone’s potential in parcel delivery. The objectives are 1) to introduce the cluster and truck-drone in tandem delivery method, 2) to compare the new method with the traditional TSP method in aspect of truck running distance, energy using and time occupation. The parcel delivery demand is sparse, so it is not dense enough for a truck to carry on delivery. We try to identify the best route for the drone to deliver the goods. We use k-mean method to carry on clustering, then we use enumeration method to fulfill the centroids delivery, which comes from the depot. We design a model and calculate the energy, time and distance saving between drone using method(DTSP) and traditional TSP method. The drone attended delivery saves truck delivery distance, energy consumption and time.The truck running distance of DTSP method saves 91.87%, the truck running distance is shortened from 189.69 km to 15.4252 km. The DTSP method saves 90.45% of energy. The DTSP method brings a29.75% cutoff in time aspect when there are two drone in running. The research introduces the cluster and TSP combination method, which is a good way to carry on last mile delivery. The result shows a bright future for drone to attend parcel delivery. The e-commerce corporation can apply this method in practice.