A Hybrid Multiple Criteria Decision Making Model for Selecting the Location of Women's Fitness Centers

Abstract

Location selection is a critical problem for businesses that can determine the success of an organization. Selecting the optimal location from a pool of alternatives belongs to a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. This study employed a hybrid MCDM technique to select locations for women's fitness centers in Taiwan. In the beginning, the fuzzy Delphi method was utilized to obtain selection criteria from interviewed senior executives. In the second stage, the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) was employed to extract interdependencies between the selection criteria within each perspective. On the basis of interdependencies between the selection criteria, the analytic network process (ANP) was used to get respective weights of each criterion. Finally, the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was ranking the alternatives. To demonstrate application of the proposed model and illustrate a location selection problem, a case was conducted. The capabilities and effectiveness of the proposed model are revealed.