Using orders of magnitude in multi-attribute decision-making

This paper presents a method for evaluating qualitative orders of magnitude information in multi-attribute decision-making. It allows the selection of an alternative from among a set of alternatives. These are characterized by having all descriptors defined in orders of magnitude. A representation for the different alternatives by means of k-dimensional labels is proposed, each of these standing for the conjunction of k labels corresponding to the qualitative information considered. A method is given for choosing the best alternative based on comparing distances against a reference k-dimensional label. For this reason, a distance is introduced that enables a total order to be defined for the set of alternatives. Finally, the method based on this order is proposed and its consistency established.