A hybrid approach to apply dematel in a multi-criteria setting

Abstract

The DEMATEL method has been applied in the Decision Sciences in several studies. However, one has not been able to apply DEMATEL directly to a multi-criteria matrix formed by a set of alternatives and a set of criteria yet. In order to approach this, we propose a novel way to apply DEMATEL to a multi-criteria matrix for ranking a set of alternatives according to their performances in a set of criteria. For accomplishing this, we consider the set of alternatives in a classical multi-criteria problem as the set of components used in a usual DEMATEL application. To set up the influence degree among studied components, we used the preference index of PROMÉTHÉE II. Such preference index takes into consideration the performances of alternatives on all criteria to establish each influence degree. Thereby, we denote the influence degree by preference degree. This new approach is applied to a case study and results are compared against those of three multi-criteria methods. It is then possible to note small, understandable differences among the rankings. This hybrid approach has therefore shown to be theoretically sound and feasible to be used in the practice of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis.