Author: Mohit Kumar

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

The best-worst method (BWM) is a well-known multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method that elicits judgements from a decision maker (DM) in the form of pairwise comparisons. There are two models of BWM that are widely used: non-linear and linear. The main drawback of the non-linear model is the non-uniqueness of the resulting weight set. A linear model gives a unique resulting weight set but with less accuracy than a non-linear model. In this paper, a simplified method is proposed that gives a unique weight set with the same accuracy as non-linear BWM. In the proposed method, first each weight set is associated with some consistent pairwise comparison system and a relationship is established between consistency values and optimal accuracy. Then an algorithm is developed for an optimal modification of the given pairwise comparison system to make it consistent. Here, an optimal modification means that the modified system preserves the original comparison values as much as possible. The weight set associated with this modified consistent pairwise comparison system is the resulting weight set of the proposed model. This weight set is unique and has the same accuracy as the weight sets resulting from the non-linear model of BWM. So if the non-linear model has a unique solution, it is same as the solution of the proposed model. Otherwise the solution of the proposed model is the best among all the solutions of the non-linear model. Thus, the proposed method is an improvement over the BWM. The values of consistency index are also modified based on the proposed method. Finally several examples are taken to illustrate the process and a real-world application (energy efficiency constraints in buildings) is taken to validate the proposed method.