Simplified neutrosophic indeterminate decision making method with decision makers’ indeterminate ranges

Abstract

There exists the indeterminate situations of truth, falsity, indeterminacy degrees due to the uncertainty and inconsistency of decision makers’ arguments in a complicated decision making (DM) problem. Then, existing neutrosophic set cannot describe the indeterminate information of truth, falsity, indeterminacy degrees. It is noted that the simplified neutrosophic set (SNS) is depicted by truth, falsity, indeterminacy degrees, while a neutrosophic number (NN) can be flexibly depicted by its determinate part and its indeterminate part. Regarding the indeterminate situations of truth, falsity, indeterminacy degrees in indeterminate DM problems, this study first presents a simplified neutrosophic indeterminate set (SNIS) to express the hybrid information of SNS and NN and defines the score, accuracy, and certainty functions of simplified neutrosophic indeterminate elements (SNIEs) with indeterminate ranges to compare SNIEs. Then, we introduce a SNIE weighted arithmetic averaging (SNIEWAA) operator and a SNIE weighted geometric averaging (SNIEWGA) operator to aggregate simplified neutrosophic indeterminate information. Next, a multi-attribute DM approach with decision makers’ indeterminate ranges is established regarding the SNIEWAA and SNIEWGA operators in SNIS setting. Finally, the proposed DM approach is applied in a DM example on choosing a suitable slope design scheme to indicate the applicability and suitability of the proposed approach.