Multiple Criteria Decision Making: An Introduction

Abstract

The basic traditional structure underlying any decision-making problem can be summarised as follows. The existence of limited resources (understanding the term resource in a broad sense), generates the constraints of the problem. The value of the decision variables satisfying the constraints define what is known as the feasible or attainable set. This set can either be continuous (infinite number of solutions) or discrete (finite number of solutions). Once the feasible set is established, the subsequent step consists in defining a criterion function which suitably reflects the preferences of decision maker by associating a number to each feasible solution. Finally, by resorting to more or less sophisticated mathematical techniques, the “best” or “optimal” solution is obtained.