Application of TOPSIS in evaluating initial training aircraft under a fuzzy environment

This paper develops an evaluation approach based on the Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), to help the Air Force Academy in Taiwan choose optimal initial training aircraft in a fuzzy environment where the vagueness and subjectivity are handled with linguistic terms parameterised by triangular fuzzy numbers. This study applies the fuzzy multi-criteria decisionmaking (MCDM) method to determine the importance weights of evaluation criteria and to synthesize the ratings of candidate aircraft. Aggregated the evaluators’ attitude toward preference; then TOPSIS is employed to obtain a crisp overall performance value for each alternative to make a final decision. This approach is demonstrated with a real case study involving 16 evaluation criteria, seven initial propeller-driven training aircraft assessed by 15 evaluators from the Taiwan Air Force Academy. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.