Choose Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) depends on a scientific field called Operational Research (e.g. work by B. Roy, Lamsade, since the 1970s).

MCDA aims to take multiple criteria into account by helping individuals or groups to explore the decisions that matter (Belton et al., 2002).

It helps integrate objective measurement with value judgment, using quantitative or qualitative indicators, and makes subjectivity explicit and manageable through the organized involvement of actors involved.

It aims to deal with the problems of aggregation and weighting in the organization of indicators and criteria.

There are different MCDA methods: weighted sums, outranking methods, multi-attribute utility theory...

Within the MEANS platform, we provide different MCDA tools adapted to the agricultural and agri-food domain, or calculation tools that can be used in MCDA, which come from the studies (often in partnership) carried out by INRAE and CIRAD.

Choosing a method is complicated and it is necessary to verify that it corresponds to one's needs.

One can refer to the work of the RMT Plage-Erytage and their help in choosing methods.