A new extension of the EDAS method in a fuzzy environment for group decision-making

The complexity of the decision-making problems being analysed has led to the development of multiple multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. One of the more recent methods belonging to this group is the evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) method. To date, it has found extensive use in solving real-world decision-making problems and has seen many extensions to input data types other than real numbers. One of these is the EDAS method for group decision-making in a fuzzy environment. This method aggregates individual evaluations of decision-makers into a group evaluation using the arithmetic mean. This may result in equal group ratings despite the variety of individual ratings, making it difficult or even impossible to rank alternatives because the EDAS algorithm will be blocked. The paper proposes a new fuzzy extension of EDAS called the PFEDAS method for group decision-making. The main difference between the proposed method and the original one is that at the initial stage the individual decision matrices are not aggregated into a group matrix but are transformed into matrices of alternatives. As a result, the new PFEDAS method is based on the initial data instead of their averaged values which allows a more accurate comparison of alternatives. Using a numerical example, the PFEDAS method is compared with other similar methods known from the literature.