Evaluation of e-service providers using a fuzzy multi-attribute group decision-making method

Since most of the companies prefer outsourcing for e-activities, the selection of e-service provider becomes a crucial issue for those companies. E-service evaluation is a complex problem in which many qualitative attributes must be considered. These kinds of attributes make the evaluation process hard and vague. Cost-benefit analyses applied to various areas are usually based on the data under certainty or risk. In case of uncertain, vague, and/or linguistic data, the fuzzy set theory can be used to handle the analysis. This paper presents the evaluation and selection process for e-service provider alternatives. Many main and sub-attributes are considered in the evaluation. The e-service providers are evaluated and prioritized using a fuzzy multi-attribute group decision-making method. This method first defines group consistency and inconsistency indices based on preferences to alternatives given by decision makers and construct a linear programming decision model based on the distance of each alternative to a fuzzy positive ideal solution which is unknown. Then the fuzzy positive ideal solution and the weights of attributes are estimated using the new decision model based on the group consistency and inconsistency indices. Finally, the distance of each alternative to the fuzzy positive ideal solution is calculated to determine the ranking order of all alternatives.