Further Development of MADM-Approaches in China and in Germany

This paper seeks to give an overview and compare the main stream of thought in Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) theory and practice in China and Germany. MADM approaches are suitable for evaluation of a set of discrete alternatives. Widely applied approaches, including Multi Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the outranking methods ELECTRE, PROMETHEE, TOPSIS, find applications in the strategic production planning, site selection or technique assessment under economic, ecological and technical attributes. In China, MAUT and AHP are predominantly applied, while in Germany outranking methods are more popular. As further development,the integration of Fuzzy theory and artificial intelligence in MADM are discussed,thus imprecise information can be considered.