Fuzzy Group Decision Making

Dear Colleagues,

Fuzzy group decision making is an innovative application of fuzzy collaborative intelligence to decision making. The philosophy of fuzzy collaborative intelligence is to analyze a problem from diverse perspectives to increase the chance that no relevant aspects of the problem will be ignored. In a fuzzy group decision-making system, some decision makers (or decision-making units) with various backgrounds attempt to make a decision collaboratively. Since they have different knowledge and points of view, they may use various fuzzy decision-making methods to analyze the problem and make their choices. The key to such a system is that these decision makers share and exchange their observations, settings, experiences, and knowledge with each other when making a decision. This feature makes the fuzzy group decision-making system distinct from the ensemble of multiple fuzzy decision-making systems. Fuzzy group decision-making methods can be divided into two categories: anterior-aggregation fuzzy group decision-making methods, and posterior-aggregation fuzzy group decision-making methods. The former aggregates decision makers’ judgments before making a decision jointly; the latter aggregates decision makers’ decisions to look for a consensus. In either category, both the collaboration among decision makers and the aggregation of decision makers’ judgments (or decisions) are critical issues. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, fuzzy group decision making is particularly meaningful because decision makers may not be able to gather in the same place to make a decision jointly. This Special Issue aims to provide technical details on advances in fuzzy group decision making, including methodology, collaboration and aggregation mechanisms, system architectures, and applications. These details should be of great interest to researchers in decision making, artificial intelligence, soft computing, operations management, and information management, as well as practicing managers and engineers.

Prof. Dr. Tin-Chih Toly Chen
Guest Editor

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