Multi-Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA) or Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods have received much attention from researchers and practitioners in evaluating, assessing and ranking alternatives across diverse industries. Among numerous MCDA/MCDM methods developed to solve real-world decision problems, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) continues to work satisfactorily across different application areas. In this paper, we conduct a state-of-the-art literature survey to taxonomize the research on TOPSIS applications and methodologies. The classification scheme for this review contains 266 scholarly papers from 103 journals since the year 2000, separated into nine application areas: (1) Supply Chain Management and Logistics, (2) Design, Engineering and Manufacturing Systems, (3) Business and Marketing Management, (4) Health, Safety and Environment Management, (5) Human Resources Management, (6) Energy Management, (7) Chemical Engineering, (8) Water Resources Management and (9) Other topics. Scholarly papers in the TOPSIS discipline are further interpreted based on (1) publication year, (2) publication journal, (3) authors' nationality and (4) other methods combined or compared with TOPSIS. We end our review paper with recommendations for future research in TOPSIS decision-making that is both forward-looking and practically oriented. This paper provides useful insights into the TOPSIS method and suggests a framework for future attempts in this area for academic researchers and practitioners.

Review: A state-of the-art survey of TOPSIS applications

In this Chapter, we imagine a decision maker (or a group of experts) trying to establish or examine fair procedures to combine opinions about alternatives related to different points of view.

Multiple criteria decision making

Multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) is considered as a complex decision-making (DM) tool involving both quantitative and qualitative factors. In recent years, several MCDM techniques and approaches have been suggested to choosing the optimal probable options. The purpose of this article is to systematically review the applications and methodologies of the MCDM techniques and approaches. This study reviewed a total of 393 articles published from 2000 to 2014 in more than 120 peer reviewed journals (extracted from Web of Science). According to experts’ opinion, these articles were grouped into 15 fields. Furthermore, these articles were categorised based on authors, publication date, name of journals, methods, tools, and type of research (MCDM utilising research, MCDM developing research, and MCDM proposing research). The results of this study indicated that in 2013 scholars have published articles more than in other years. In addition, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method in the individual tool...

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Multiple criteria decision-making techniques and their applications – a review of the literature from 2000 to 2014

An integrated green supplier selection approach with analytic network process and improved Grey relational analysis

Energy, which is the main agenda of our world, is crucially important for the people. Many countries frequently held meetings and discussions with energy agenda. These countries are working to balance the energy demand and supply. For finding the solution are researched, researches should be attempted to present a more efficient way to use energy as well as renewable energy resources effectively. Photovoltaic energy power systems take place as the most dominant source among renewable energy technologies. The most important reason is that it is unlimited and clean energy of the solar power systems. Many studies show that photovoltaic power systems will have an important share in the electricity of the future. In this study, to generate electricity from solar energy using photovoltaic systems have a leading position in some European countries, United States of America, China and Japan's current status and future policies will be analyzed in various comments were made.

The analysis on photovoltaic electricity generation status, potential and policies of the leading countries in solar energy

Most of the time, the input of the decision process is linguistic, but this is not the case for the output. For that reason, we have modified the TOPSIS model to make it so that the output of the process is the same as the input, that is to say linguistic. This proposal will be applied to the process of quality assessment and accreditation of the Industrial Engineering Schools within the Spanish university system.

The TOPSIS Method and Its Application to Linguistic Variables

This paper presents research work in which an innovative didactic proposal was designed for the study of 3D metric geometry in the second year of A-level courses (secondary education) in the specialty of the sciences. The designed didactic proposal has the format of a workshop of geometry practices and is framed in the Didactic Situations Theory and in the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic. Although the mentioned theories, which the French school has developed since the seventies, are widely known and studied by secondary school mathematics teachers during their training in pedagogy, especially in Spanish- and French-speaking countries, their innovative approach has not been fully implemented in the field of algebraic geometry. Mathematics textbooks follow the traditional approach in which the teacher simply provides the contents and instructs the student, who captures these concepts and reproduces them as they have been supplied. In the presented didactic proposal, the approach proposed by Brousseau is followed, in which three fundamental elements take part: student, teacher, and the didactic environment. The teacher is the one who facilitates the environment in which the student builds his knowledge. In the proposal the didactic contract is stablished, the didactic situations are designed, and the means and didactic variables for the study of 3D metric geometry are chosen. The methodology followed in this study consisted of identifying educational problems; describing the theoretical framework; developing the didactic proposal; and analysis, reflection, and criticism of this training product. The contextualization of the geometry workshop in the field of the construction of structures and the use of deductive reasoning techniques that are applied in synthetic geometry and also in the building information modeling (BIM) methodology may be a way of showing the use of analytical geometry in the industries of engineering and architecture; they also serve as an opportunity for students to better understand this mathematical work.

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Design of 3D Metric Geometry Study and Research Activities within a BIM Framework

In projects regarding renewable energy facilities, decision making is an essential activity that provides greater consistency and viability to the project. The first step that any promoter of such facilities should face is to select an optimal location. To do so, it is necessary to consider all the criteria that influence the decision. However, not all the criteria are equally important, which means that determining their weights is extremely important. The objective of this chapter is to obtain the weights of the decision criteria that influence the location problems of wind farms and solar photovoltaic and thermoelectric plants. For this, a Decision Support System (DSS) has been designed that allows to carry out the extraction of knowledge from an expert group by Fuzzy AHP methodology. Finally, DSS will sort the viable locations based on the importance of the criteria that influence the decision.

Obtaining the Decision Criteria and Evaluation of Optimal Sites for Renewable Energy Facilities Through a Decision Support System

Location of Renewable Energy Facilities will depend on various factors such as environmental, orography location and climatology criteria, which in turn are broken down into sub-criteria that will depend on the technology to locate. The objective of the present paper is to obtain the weights of the decision criteria which influence in the problem of location of renewable energy facilities, especially in wind farms and solar plants (photovoltaic and thermoelectric). To that end a Decision Support System (DSS) has been designed to help the decision-maker to obtain the weights of the criteria involved in this decision. Fuzzy AHP methodology is used with that DSS for the extraction of expert knowledge and to model the vague and imprecise data by triangular fuzzy numbers.

Decision Support Systems to Obtain Decision Criteria by Fuzzy AHP for Location of Renewable Energy Facilities

The climate emergency has intensified the search for the generation of electricity from renewable energies in order to turn cities into sustainable cities. Small-scale wind power offers new opportunities for decentralized electricity production, avoiding dependence on the grid and transmission losses. Among viable locations within the urban environment, high-rise buildings are especially promising due to the elevated height and less turbulent wind conditions. They can also be integrated into the architecture of the building or as independent units in the urban environment. In this area, this work presents a methodology for determining the annual energy production of urban wind projects. The proposal is divided into four stages: location, wind and urban indicators, turbine selection and annual production estimation, and economic/environmental analysis. The evaluation of the solution is carried out for a Spanish case study. According to the results, more than 68,000 kWh/year can be generated with an investment recovery period of less than six years.

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M. Socorro García-Cascales

Papers

The TOPSIS Method and Its Application to Linguistic Variables

Design of 3D Metric Geometry Study and Research Activities within a BIM Framework

Obtaining the Decision Criteria and Evaluation of Optimal Sites for Renewable Energy Facilities Through a Decision Support System

Decision Support Systems to Obtain Decision Criteria by Fuzzy AHP for Location of Renewable Energy Facilities

Urban Wind: An Alternative for Sustainable Cities