MCDM methods: Practical difficulties and future directions for improvement

Abstract

This paper critically reviews practical difficulties inherent in some of the existing multi-criteria decision-making methods. The paper also emphasizes why a benchmark decision situation is essential in assessing the capabilities of any multi-criteria decision-making method. The capability is in terms of accuracy in modeling the human decision-making process. Most multi-criteria decision-making methods consist of two important steps. The first step involves elicitation of preferences from the decision-maker on various criteria and alternatives of the problem. In the second step, the preferences defined by the decision-maker are aggregated. The overall score generated after aggregation is used in rank order calculation and final selection. However, if the prescriptions of multi-criteria decision-making method do not resemble actual or real decision of the very same decision-maker, then multi-criteria decision-making method failed in either capturing the true preferences of the decision-maker or in aggregating these preferences as per the expectations of the decision-maker. This paper discusses some of the latest theories of decision-making and provides three important directions to improve the descriptive aspects of multi-criteria decision analysis.