This monograph presents new developments in multi-level decision-making theory, technique and method in both modeling and solution issues. It especially presents how a decision support system can support managers in reaching a solution to a multi-level decision problem in practice. This monograph combines decision theories, methods, algorithms and applications effectively. It discusses in detail the models and solution algorithms of each issue of bi-level and tri-level decision-making, such as multi-leaders, multi-followers, multi-objectives, rule-set-based, and fuzzy parameters. Potential readers include organizational managers and practicing professionals, who can use the methods and software provided to solve their real decision problems; PhD students and researchers in the areas of bi-level and multi-level decision-making and decision support systems; students at an advanced undergraduate, master’s level in information systems, business administration, or the application of computer science.

Decision making is the process of selecting a possible course of action from all the available alternatives. In almost all such problems the multiplicity of criteria for judging the alternatives is pervasive. That is, for many such problems, the decision maker (OM) wants to attain more than one objective or goal in selecting the course of action while satisfying the constraints dictated by environment, processes, and resources. Another characteristic of these problems is that the objectives are apparently non commensurable. Mathematically, these problems can be represented as: (1. 1 ) subject to: gi(~) ~ 0, ,', . . . ,. ! where ~ is an n dimensional decision variable vector. The problem consists of n decision variables, m constraints and k objectives. Any or all of the functions may be nonlinear. In literature this problem is often referred to as a vector maximum problem (VMP). Traditionally there are two approaches for solving the VMP. One of them is to optimize one of the objectives while appending the other objectives to a constraint set so that the optimal solution would satisfy these objectives at least up to a predetermined level. The problem is given as: Max f. ~) 1 (1. 2) subject to: where at is any acceptable predetermined level for objective t. The other approach is to optimize a super-objective function created by multiplying each 2 objective function with a suitable weight and then by adding them together.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of cutting-edge approaches for decision-making in hierarchical organizations. It presents soft-computing-based techniques, including fuzzy sets, neural networks, genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization, and shows how these approaches can be effectively used to deal with problems typical of this kind of organization. After introducing the main classical approaches applied to multiple-level programming, the book describes a set of soft-computing techniques, demonstrating their advantages in providing more efficient solutions to hierarchical decision-making problems compared to the classical methods. Based on the book Fuzzy and Multi-Level Decision Making (Springer, 2001) by Lee E.S and Shih, H., this second edition has been expanded to include the most recent findings and methods and a broader spectrum of soft computing approaches. All the algorithms are presented in detail, together with a wealth of practical examples and solutions to real-world problems, providing students, researchers and professionals with a timely, practice-oriented reference guide to the area of interactive fuzzy decision making, multi-level programming and hierarchical optimization.

Managerial Decisions in hierarchy organizations, such as the various manufacturing and service companies, are difficult to formalize and even more difficult to optimize. By exploring the typical fuzziness, vagueness, or the "not-well-defined" nature of such organizations, this book presents the first comprehensive treatment of this difficult and practically important problem. The advantages of the proposed fuzzy interactive approach are that it significantly reduces computational requirements. Equally, the representation of the system is made more realistic through the recognition of the inherent fuzziness of such large organizations. Both the multi-ploy and the game-like decision making processes, also known as multi-level programming and the fuzzy interactive approach, are discussed in detail. The emphasis is on numerical algorithms and numerous examples are solved and compared. The concepts of fuzzy set and fuzzy linguistic representation, which form an integral part of any managerial decision, are also discussed.

This paper presents a literature review on the theory, applications and software of Bi-level, Multi –Level Multiple Criteria Decision Making and TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity Ideal Solution) Approach.

Distributed decision making (DDM) has become of increasing importance in quantitative decision analysis. In applications like supply chain management, service operations, or managerial accounting, DDM has led to a paradigm shift. The book provides a unified approach to such seemingly diverse fields as multi-level stochastic programming, hierarchical production planning, principal agent theory, negotiations or contract theory. Different settings like multi-level one-person decision problems, multi-person antagonistic planning, and leadership situations are covered. Numerous examples and real-life planning cases illustrate the concepts. The new edition has been considerably expanded by additional chapters on supply chain management, service operations and multi-agent systems.

Applications of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Theories in Healthcare and Biomedical Engineering contains several practical applications on how decision-making theory could be used in solving problems relating to the selection of best alternatives. The book focuses on assisting decision-makers (government, organizations, companies, general public, etc.) in making the best and most appropriate decision when confronted with multiple alternatives. The purpose of the analytical MCDM techniques is to support decision makers under uncertainty and conflicting criteria while making logical decisions. The knowledge of the alternatives of the real-life problems, properties of their parameters, and the priority given to the parameters have a great effect on consequences in decision-making. In this book, the application of MCDM has been provided for the real-life problems in health and biomedical engineering issues. - Provides a comprehensive analysis and application multi-criteria decision-making methods - Presents detail information about MCDM and their usage - Covers state-of-the-art MCDM methods and offers applications of MCDM for health and biomedical engineering purposes

Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) has been one of the fastest growing problem areas in many disciplines. The central problem is how to evaluate a set of alternatives in terms of a number of criteria. Although this problem is very relevant in practice, there are few methods available and their quality is hard to determine. Thus, the question `Which is the best method for a given problem?' has become one of the most important and challenging ones. This is exactly what this book has as its focus and why it is important. The author extensively compares, both theoretically and empirically, real-life MCDM issues and makes the reader aware of quite a number of surprising `abnormalities' with some of these methods. What makes this book so valuable and different is that even though the analyses are rigorous, the results can be understood even by the non-specialist. Audience: Researchers, practitioners, and students; it can be used as a textbook for senior undergraduate or graduate courses in business and engineering.

When people or computers need to make a decision, typically multiple conflicting criteria need to be evaluated; for example, when we buy a car, we need to consider safety, cost and comfort. Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) has been researched for decades. Now as the rising trend of big-data analytics in supporting decision making, MCDM can be more powerful when combined with state-of-the-art analytics and machine learning. In this book, the authors introduce a new framework of MCDM, which can lead to more accurate decision making. Several real-world cases will be included to illustrate the new hybrid approaches.

This work examines all the fuzzy multicriteria methods recently developed, such as fuzzy AHP, fuzzy TOPSIS, interactive fuzzy multiobjective stochastic linear programming, fuzzy multiobjective dynamic programming, grey fuzzy multiobjective optimization, fuzzy multiobjective geometric programming, and more. Each of the 22 chapters includes practical applications along with new developments/results. This book may be used as a textbook in graduate operations research, industrial engineering, and economics courses. It will also be an excellent resource, providing new suggestions and directions for further research, for computer programmers, mathematicians, and scientists in a variety of disciplines where multicriteria decision making is needed.