Article ID: | iaor20108522 |
Volume: | 38 |
Issue: | 5 |
Start Page Number: | 816 |
End Page Number: | 823 |
Publication Date: | May 2011 |
Journal: | Computers and Operations Research |
Authors: | Stix Volker, Bernroider Edward, Obwegeser Nikolaus |
Keywords: | artificial intelligence: decision support |
This article seeks to enhance acceptance of the profile distance method (PDM) in decision support systems. The PDM is a multiple attributive-based decision making as well as a multiple method approach to support complex decision making and uses a heuristic to avoid computationally complex global optimization. We elaborate on the usability of the method and question the heuristic used. We present a bi-section algorithm, which efficiently supports the discovery of transition profiles needed in a user-friendly and practical application of the method. Additionally, we provide empirical evidence showing that the proposed heuristic is efficient and delivers results within 5% of the global optimizer for a wide range of datasets.