A DSS for Resolving Evaluation of Criteria by Interactive Flexible Elicitation Procedure

Abstract

This paper describes the implementation of a Decision Support System (DSS) with a flexible elicitation procedure to support a decision maker (DM) to establish weights for a multi criteria choice decision problem, based on the concept of a flexible procedure. The DSS not only presents an elicitation interface to establish weights, but computes the performance of alternatives in an additive model, thus enabling the DM to reduce the set of non-dominated alternatives since partial information about preferences is given. When the flexible elicitation procedure implemented in this DSS is performed less information is required from the DM, which implies that less cognitive effort is required. The DSS contributes by providing a user friendly interface which enables the elicitation protocol to be performed using graphics and by computing alternatives performance quickly so that the elicitation process can be finished quickly with the minimum number of questions needed to solve the choice problem. The flexible elicitation procedure proposed is illustrated with a numerical application. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.