Best-worst Tradeoff method

Abstract

This study aims to develop a Multi-Attribute Decision-Making (MADM) method, the Best-Worst Tradeoff method, which draws on the underlying principles of two popular MADM methods (the Best-Worst Method (BWM) and the Tradeoff). The traditional Tradeoff procedure, which is based on the axiomatic foundation of multi-attribute value theory, considers the ranges of the attributes, but decision-makers/analysts find it hard to check the consistency of the paired comparisons when using this method. The traditional BWM, on the other hand, uses two opposite references (best and worst) in a single optimization, which not only frames the elicitation process in a more structured way, but helps decision-makers/analysts check the consistency. However, the BWM does not explicitly considers the attributes ranges in the pairwise comparisons. The method proposed in this study uses the “consider-the-opposite-strategy” and accounts for the range effect simultaneously. Specifically, the decision-maker considers the ranges of the attributes and provide two pairwise comparison vectors, then an optimization model is designed to determine the optimal weights of the attributes based on these two vectors. After that, consistency thresholds are constructed to check the consistency of the judgements. Finally, a case study is used to examine the feasibility of the proposed method.