How to select and how to rank projects: The Promethee method

In this paper, we present the Promethee methods, a new class of outranking methods in multicriteria analysis. Their main features are simplicity, clearness and stability. The notion of generalized criterion is used to construct a valued outranking relation. All the parameters to be defined have an economic signification, so that the decision maker can easily fix them. Two ways of treatment are proposed: It is possible to obtain either a partial preorder (Promethee I) or a complete one (Promethee II), both on a finite set of feasible actions. A comparison is made with the Electre III method. The stability of the results given by the two methods is analysed. Numerical applications are given in order to illustrate the properties of the new methods and some further problems are discussed.