Abstract
When a decision must be made, a tool called multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is used to assess and select alternatives among numerous criteria. For a wide variety of complex problems, MCDM methods have demonstrated usefulness in finding the optimal solutions. Despite the abundance of MCDM methods available today, there has been slow progress in developing new methodologies in MCDM in the past decade. In this context, this paper presents new MCDM tools which ranks alternatives based on median similarity (RAMS) between optimal alternatives and other alternatives. RAMS is an extension to the most recently developed technique that used perimeter similarity (RAPS). This paper also introduces a further tool that combines the RAMS method with the multiple criteria ranking by alternative trace (MCRAT) methodology using a majority index and the concept of the VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method. This tool is ranking the alternatives based on the trace to median index (RATMI). An illustration of the use of RAMS and RATMI is given through a case study of ranking different materials for the selection of break booster valve body in a vehicle. The validity of the new two techniques was tested against seven well-known MCDM techniques (ARAS, SAW, TOPSIS, COPRAS, VIKOR, WASPAS, and MOORA) using fifteen real problems data taken from the literature. The RATMI technique was more promising than RAPS and RAMS for 87% and 93% of the fifteen difficulties, respectively, according to the results of the correlation coefficient tests between the developed techniques and the selected seven techniques.