A novel hybrid decision-making model for selecting locations in a fuzzy environment

The criteria in multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems often have independent and dependent characteristics simultaneously, so they cannot be evaluated by conventional additive or non-additive measures in real-life environments. This paper proposes a new hybrid MCDM model to solve location selection problems, and the results of solving MCDM problems tallied with real-life circumstances due to the use of two concepts in the new hybrid model. The concepts comprise a new structural model and a new evaluation method. The new structural modeling technique is used to draw the hierarchical/network framework, and the MCDM problem is solved using the proposed evaluation method. Here, the fuzzy ANP (analytic network process) is used to construct fuzzy weights of all criteria. Linguistic terms characterized by triangular fuzzy numbers are then used to denote the evaluation values of all alternatives versus various criteria. Finally, the aggregation fuzzy assessments of different alternatives are ranked to determine the best selection. Furthermore, this paper uses a numerical example for selecting the location of an international distribution center in Pacific Asia to illustrate the proposed method. Through this example, this paper demonstrates the applicability of the proposed method, and the results show that this method is an effective means for tackling MCDM problems.