Integrating grey number and Minkowski distance function into grey relational analysis technique to improve the decision quality under uncertain information

Abstract

Giving precise evaluation numbers becomes much more problematic in decision‐making problems owing to the growing uncertainty inherently embedded in the increasing complexity of engineering systems. To alleviate this problem, both grey number and Minkowski distance function are integrated into the grey relational analysis technique to establish an effective multi‐attribute decision‐making model. In the proposed model, the uncertain information is transformed through the operations of grey numbers and then evaluated by the approachability of the ideal preference alternative, from which the suitability of each alternative is measured by the grey number Minkowski distance function to decide the appropriate selection. Two illustrative examples, the selection of construction alternatives and the evaluation of subcontractors, are adopted to demonstrate the feasibility and practicability of the proposed model. Results are confirmed by the experts afterwards and show that the proposed model is efficient, robust and well appropriate for real‐world applications.

Keywords:

• Grey number
• grey relational analysis technique
• multi‐attribute decision making
• uncertain information.