Defuzzify firstly or finally: Dose it matter in fuzzy DEMATEL under uncertain environment?

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether the timing of defuzzification in fuzzy DEMATEL affects decision-making results under uncertainty, showing that defuzzifying at the final step is more reasonable in some cases.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of defuzzification timing in fuzzy DEMATEL and challenges the common practice of defuzzifying first.

Findings

Defuzzifying first can lead to inconsistent results.

Defuzzifying at the final step yields more reliable outcomes.

Timing of defuzzification impacts decision accuracy.

Abstract

Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method is widely used in many real applications. With the desirable property of efficient handling with the uncertain information in decision making, the fuzzy DEMATEL is heavily studied. Recently, Dytczak and Ginda suggested to defuzzify the fuzzy numbers firstly and then use the classical DEMATEL to obtain the final result. In this short paper, we show that it is not reasonable in some situations. The results of defuzzification at the first step are not coincide with the results of defuzzification at the final step.It seems that the alternative is to defuzzification in the final step in fuzzy DEMATEL.