AGGREGATION FUNCTIONS FOR ENGINEERING DESIGN TRADE-OFFS

The choice of an aggregation function is a common problem in multi-att ribute decision making (MADM) systems. The Method of Imprecision (MOI) is a formal theory for the manipulation of preliminary design informa tion that represents preferences among design alternatives with the ma thematics of fuzzy sets. The MOI formulates the preliminary design pro blem as a MADM problem. To date, two aggregation functions have been d eveloped for the MOI, one representing a compensating strategy and one a non-compensating strategy. Much of the prior fuzzy sets research on aggregation functions has been inappropriate for application to engin eering design. In this paper, the selection of an aggregation function for MADM schemes is discussed within the context of the MOI. The gene ral restrictions on design-appropriate aggregation functions are outli ned, and a family of functions, modeling a range of trade-off strategi es, is presented. The results are illustrated with an example. (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.