Ranking Fuzzy Numbers and Its Application to Products Attributes Preferences

Abstract

Ranking is one of the widely used methods in fuzzy decision making environment. The recent ranking fuzzy numbers proposed by Wang and Li is claimed to be the improved version in ranking. However, the method was never been simplified and tested in real life application. This paper presents a four-step computation of ranking fuzzy numbers and its application in ranking attributes of selected chocolate products.  The four steps algorithm was formulated to rank fuzzy numbers and followed by a testimony in sensory evaluation of four selected chocolate cake products that presently available in Malaysian market.  Data in form of linguistic terms were collected from thirty eight judges at Terengganu State of Malaysia. Decisions were made based on the centroid point ( x, y ), where the degree of representative location ( x ) is higher than average height ( y ). These points permit to characterize the evaluation behaviour of each attribute of the chocolate cake products.  The attributes of chocolate cake products then were successfully ranked.  according to the selected attributes. The ranking shows the feasibility of the proposed stepwise computation in real application.