UTA method for the consulting firm selection problem

Abstract

The market conditions change due to the introduction of new products, unforseen demand fluctuations, rapid change of the life cycle of products and profit margins. Therefore, companies try to survive in a competitive environment by making their operational decisions strategically and systematically. Selection problems play an important role among these decisions. In the literature there are many robust MCDM (Multi Criteria Decision Making) methods that consider the conflicting selection criteria and alternatives. In this paper the consulting firm selection problem is solved with UTA (UTility Additive) method which is one of the MCDM methods. This method considers preference of the decision makers on alternatives and uses linear programming model to obtain a utility function having a minimum deviation from the preferences. In order to illustrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the method, a real case study is presented.