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Application of fuzzy TOPSIS method for the selection of
Warehouse Location: A Case Study

Maysam Ashrafzadeh*
Department of Industrial Engineering
Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
Postal Code: 81647-76574, Unit 3, No 289, East Kakh Saadatabad St, Mir Ave, Isfahan, Iran

Farimah Mokhatab Rafiei
Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, 84156-83111

Naser Mollaverdi Isfahani
Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, 84156-83111

Zahra Zare
Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract
Warehouse location selection is a multi-criteria decision problem including both
quantitative and qualitative criteria and has a strategic importance for many companies.
The conventional approaches to warehouse location selection problem tend to be less
effective in dealing with the imprecise or vague nature of the linguistic assessment.
Under many situations, the values of the qualitative criteria are often imprecisely
defined for the decision-makers. To overcome this difficulty, fuzzy multi-criteria
decision-making methods are proposed. In this paper, we present a multi-criteria
decision making approach for selecting warehouse location under partial or incomplete
information (uncertainty). The proposed approach comprises of two steps. In step 1, we
identify the criteria for warehouse location selection. In step 2, experts provide
linguistic ratings to the potential alternatives against the selected criteria. Fuzzy
TOPSIS is used to generate aggregate scores selection of best alternative. This paper
shows a successful application of fuzzy TOPSIS to a real warehouse location selection
problem of a big company in Iran.
Keywords: Warehouse location; Multi criteria decision making; Fuzzy TOPSIS
1. Introduction
Warehouses are a key aspect of modern supply chains and play a vital role in the
success, or failure of businesses today [24]. A warehouse is a commercial building for
buffering and storing goods. Warehouses are utilized by manufacturers, importers,

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exporters, retailers, transport businesses, etc. The location theory was first introduced by
Weber (1989) who considered the problem of locating a single warehouse in order to
minimize the total travel distance between the warehouse and a set of spatially
distributed customers. Indeed, he proposed a material index for the selection of the
location according to which, if this index is greater than one, the warehouse should be
installed in the vicinity of the source of raw material; otherwise, it must be close to the
market [6]. The decision process in question encompasses the identification, analysis,
evaluation and selection among alternatives. Such a decision is among the most critical
decisions of distribution network design. The selection of a warehouse location among
alternative locations is a multi-criteria decision making problem including both
quantitative and qualitative criteria. Such decisions are of great importance to
companies because they are costly and difficult to reverse, and entail a long-term
commitment. They also have an impact on operating costs and revenues. For instance, a
poor choice of location might result in excessive transportation costs, a shortage of
qualified labor, loss of competitive advantage or some similar condition that would be
detrimental to operations [47]. The general procedure for making location decisions
usually consists of the following steps:
Decide on the criteria that will be used to evaluate location alternatives
Identify criteria that are important
Develop location alternatives
Evaluate the alternatives and make a selection

The location of a warehouse is generally one of the most important and strategic
decision in the optimization of logistic systems. It is a long-term decision and is
influenced by many quantitative and qualitative criteria; however, some criteria are so
important that they tend to dominate the decision dominate the decision in importance.
Among the criteria taken into account in this paper are costs, labor characteristics,
infrastructure and market. The conventional approaches to warehouse location selection
problem tend to be less effective in dealing with the imprecise or vague nature of the
linguistic assessment. In many situations, the values of the qualitative criteria are often
imprecisely defined for decision-makers. In this paper, we present a multi criteria
decision making approach to warehouse location selection under uncertain (fuzzy)
circumstances. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: the literature review on
warehouse/facility location selection is given in Section 2. In Section 3 and 4, we
present the preliminaries of fuzzy set theory and fuzzy TOPSIS. In Section 5, we
present the multi criteria decision making approach for warehouse location selection
based on fuzzy TOPSIS. In Section 6, we present a case study and finally, in Section 7
we provide the conclusions and steps for future work.

2. Literature review
Among supply chain studies, many papers on warehouse/facility location problem have
been published. Vlachopoulou et al. [51] aim at developing a geographic decision
support system for the warehouse site selection process, enabling the manager to use
quantitative and qualitative criteria in order to classify alternative warehouses or
visualize the best one. Sharma and Berry [45] consider the single stage capacitated
warehouse location problem (SSCWLP) where goods are shipped from plants to

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warehouses and from warehouses to markets. The problem is to choose a set of points
where warehouses are located so that the sum of warehouse location costs and
transportation costs are minimized. In their study they consider different formulation
styles due to Geoffrion and Graves [25] and Sharma [44] for the multistage warehouse
location problem; and cast them in the formulation style of Sharma and Sharma [46] to
obtain a variety of formulations of the problem SSCWLP. A public warehouses
selection support system (PWSS) software has been built by Colson and Dorigo [17] to
give the opportunity to industrial users of exploiting a classical data base on public
warehouses, where several items of information are given on each warehouse located in
a given country. Their software public warehouses selection support has two purposes:
to select public warehouses according to several criteria and to exploit a database when
some data are missing. They use multiple-criteria selections and rankings with a mixture
of classical true continuous criteria and Boolean ones from a methodological point of
view. Michel and Hentenryck [40] present a very simple tabu-search algorithm which
performs amazingly well on the uncapacitated warehouse location problem. The
algorithm uses a linear neighborhood. Drezner et al. [20] concern themselves with the
optimal location of a central warehouse, when the possible locations and the number of
warehouses are known. They solve the problem sequentially. First, for any given central
warehouse location, the problem is a pure inventory problem. They find the optimal
policy for the inventory problem. They express the total inventory and transportation
costs as a function of the central warehouse location. The next step is to optimize this
total cost function over all possible central warehouse locations. Partovi [42] explains a
new analytic model for facility location that takes into account both external and
internal criteria that sustain competitive advantage. Partovis model, which is based on
quality function deployment (QFD), also includes the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)
and the analytic network process (ANP) concepts to determine the best location for a
facility. The most well- known general heuristic methods for facility location problems
are Tabu Search (TS), Simulated Annealing (SA), and Genetic Algorithms (GA).
Arostegui et al. [2] compare the relative performance of TS, SA, and GA on various
facilities location problems. Hidaka and Okano [26] propose a simulation-based
approach to the large-scale incapacitated warehouse/facility location problems,
including a heuristic algorithm named Balloon Search. Tzeng and Chen [50] propose
a location model based on a fuzzy multi objective approach. The model helps in
determining the optimal number and sites of fire stations at an international airport, and
also assists the relevant authorities in drawing up optimal locations for fire stations.
Because of the combinatorial complexity of their model, a genetic algorithm is
employed and compared with the enumeration method. Kuo et al. [35] develop a
decision support system using the fuzzy sets theory integrated with analytic hierarchy
process for locating a new convenience store. Chen [9] proposes a new multiple criteria
decision-making method to solve the distribution center location selection problem
under a fuzzy environment. In the proposed method, the ratings of each alternative and
the weight of criterion are described by linguistic variables that can be expressed in
triangular fuzzy numbers. The final evaluation value of each distribution centre location
is also expressed in a triangular fuzzy number.

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3. Preliminaries of fuzzy set theory
To deal with vagueness of human thought, Zadeh [54] first introduced the fuzzy set
theory, which was oriented to the rationality of uncertainty due to imprecision or
vagueness. A major contribution of fuzzy set theory is its capability of representing
vague data. The theory also allows mathematical operators and programming to apply to
the fuzzy domain. A fuzzy set is a class of objects with a continuum of grades of
membership. Such a set is characterized by a membership (characteristic) function,
which assigns to each object a grade of membership ranging between zero and one.
With different daily decision making problems of diverse intensity, the results can be
misleading if the fuzziness of human decision making is not taken into account [49].
Fuzzy sets theory providing a more widely frame than classic sets theory, has been
contributing to capability of reflecting real world [23]. Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic are
powerful mathematical tools for modeling: uncertain systems in industry, nature and
humanity; and facilitators for common-sense reasoning in decision making in the
absence of complete and precise information. Their role is significant when applied to
complex phenomena not easily described by traditional mathematical methods,
especially when the goal is to find a good approximate solution [5]. Fuzzy set theory is
a better means for modeling imprecision arising from mental phenomena which are
neither random nor stochastic. Human beings are heavily involved in the process of
decision analysis. A rational approach toward decision making should take into account
human subjectivity, rather than employing only objective probability measures. This
attitude, towards imprecision of human behavior led to study of a new decision analysis
filed fuzzy decision making [37].
A tilde ~ will be placed above a symbol if the symbol represents a fuzzy set. Some related definitions of
fuzzy set theory adapted from (Buckley [7], Dubois and Prade [21], Kaufmann and Gupta [31], Klir and
Yuan [34], Pedrycz [43], Zadeh [54], Zimmermann [55]) are presented as follows:

Definition 1. A fuzzy set M
~
in a universe of discourse X is characterized by a membership
function ) ( ~ x
M
that maps each element x in X to a real number in the interval [0, 1]. The function value
) ( ~ x
M
is termed the grade of membership of x in M
~
. The nearer the value of ) ( ~ x
M
to unity, the higher
the grade of membership of x in M
~
.

Definition 2. A triangular fuzzy number (TFN), M
~

is shown in Fig.1. A triangular fuzzy number is
denoted simply as ( l / m, m/ u ) or ( l , m, u ). The parameters l , m and u , respectively, denote the
smallest possible value, the most promising value and the largest possible value that describe a fuzzy
event.
Each triangular fuzzy number has linear representations on its left and right side such that its membership
function can be defined as:

( ) ( )
( ) ( )
>

<
=
u x
u x m m u x u
m x l l m l x
l x
M x
0
_
_
0
)
~
/ (

(3-1)

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A fuzzy number can always be given by its corresponding left and right representation of each degree of
membership:

( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) [ ] 1 , 0 _ , ,
~
) ( ) (
+ + = = y y u m u y l m l M M M
y r y l

(3-2)

Where
) (y l
and
) (y r
denote the left side representation and the right side representation of a fuzzy
number, respectively. Many ranking methods for fuzzy numbers have been developed in the literature.
These methods may give different ranking results and most methods are tedious in graphic manipulation
requiring complex mathematical calculation. The algebraic operations with fuzzy numbers can be found
in Kahraman et al. [30].

4. Fuzzy TOPSIS
Technique for Order Performance by similarity to Ideal solution (TOPSIS), one of the
most classical methods for solving MCDM problem, was first developed by Hwang and
Yoon [27]. It is based on the principle that the chosen alternative should have the
longest distance from the negative-ideal solution i.e. the solution that maximizes the
cost criteria and minimizes the benefits criteria; and the shortest distance from the
positive-ideal solution i.e. the solution that maximizes the benefit criteria and minimizes
the cost criteria. In classical TOPSIS the rating and weight of the criteria are known
precisely. However, under many real situations crisp data are inadequate to model real
life situation since human judgments are vague and cannot be estimated with exact
numeric values [27]. To resolve the ambiguity frequently arising in information from
human judgments fuzzy set theory has been incorporated in many MCDM methods
including TOPSIS.
In fuzzy TOPSIS all the ratings and weights are defined by means of linguistic
variables. A number of fuzzy TOPSIS methods and applications have been developed in
recent years. Chen and Hwang [11] first applied fuzzy numbers to establish fuzzy
TOPSIS. Triantaphyllou and Lin [48] developed a fuzzy TOPSIS method in which
relative closeness for each alternative is evaluated based on fuzzy arithmetic operations.
Liang [38] proposed Fuzzy MCDM based on ideal and anti-ideal concepts. Chen [8]
considered triangular fuzzy numbers and defined crisp Euclidean distance between two
fuzzy numbers to extend the TOPSIS method to fuzzy GDM situations. Chu [14] and
Chu and Lin [16] further improved the methodology proposed by Chen [8]. Chen and
Tsao [13] are to extend the TOPSIS method based on Interval-valued fuzzy sets in
decision analysis. J ahanshahloo et al. [28] and Chu and Lin [15] extended the fuzzy
TOPSIS method based on alpha level sets with interval arithmetic. Chen and Lee [12]
extended fuzzy TOPSIS based on type-2 fuzzy TOPSIS method in order to provide
additional degree of freedom to represent the uncertainties and fuzziness of the real
world.
Fuzzy TOPSIS has been introduced for various multi-attribute decision-making
problems. Yong [53] used fuzzy TOPSIS for plant location selection and Chen et al.
[10] used fuzzy TOPSIS for supplier selection. Kahraman et al. [29] utilized fuzzy
TOPSIS for industrial robotic system selection. Wang and Chang [52] applied fuzzy
TOPSIS to help the Air Force Academy in Taiwan choose optimal initial training

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aircraft in a fuzzy environment. Benitez et al. [4] presented a fuzzy TOPSIS approach
for evaluating dynamically the service quality of three hotels of an important
corporation in Gran Canaria Island via surveys. Kahraman et al. [29] proposed a fuzzy
hierarchical TOPSIS model for the multi-criteria evaluation of the industrial robotic
systems. Ashtiani et al. [3] used interval-valued fuzzy TOPSIS method is aiming at
solving MCDM problems in which the weights of criteria are unequal, using interval-
valued fuzzy sets concepts. Ekmekcioglu et al. [22] used a modified fuzzy TOPSIS to
select municipal solid waste disposal method and site. Kutlu and Ekmekcioglu [36] used
fuzzy TOPSIS integrated with fuzzy AHP to propose a new FMEA failure modes &
effects analysis which overcomes the shortcomings of traditional FMEA. Kaya and
Kahraman [32] proposed a modified fuzzy TOPSIS for selection of the best energy
technology alternative. Kim et al. [33] used fuzzy TOPSIS for modeling consumers
product adoption process.

The various steps of fuzzy TOPSIS are presented as follows:
Step 1: Assignment of ratings to the criteria and the alternatives.
Let us assume there are J possible candidates called } ,... , {
2 1 j
A A A A= which are to evaluated against n
criteria } ,... , {
2 1 j
C C C C = . The criteria weights are denoted by
) ,..., 1 ( m i w
i
=
. The performance ratings of each
decision maker
) ,..., 1 ( K k D
k
=
for each alternative ) ,..., 1 ( n j A
j
=

with respect to criteria
) ,..., 1 ( m i C
i
=
are
denoted by ) ,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 (
~
~
K k n j m i x R
ijk k
= = = =

with membership function ( ) x
k
R
~
.

Step 2: Compute aggregate fuzzy ratings for the criteria and the alternatives.
If the fuzzy ratings of all decision makers is described as triangular fuzzy number , ,..., 1 , ) , , (
~
K k c b a R
k k k k
= =
then the aggregated fuzzy rating is given by , ,..., 1 ), , , (
~
K k c b a R = = where;
} { } {
k
k
K
k
k k
k
c c b
K
b a a max
1
min
1
= = =

=

(4-1)
If the fuzzy rating and importance weight of the
th
k decision maker are ) , , (
~
ijk ijk ijk ijk
c b a x = and
n j m i w w w w
jk jk jk ijk
,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 ), , , (
~
3 2 1
= = = respectively, then the aggregated fuzzy ratings )
~
(
ij
x

of alternatives
with respect to each criteria are given by ) , , (
~
ij ij ij ij
c b a x =

where
} { } {
ijk
k
ij
K
k
ijk ij ijk
k
ij
c c b
K
b a a max
1
min
1
= = =

=

(4-2)

The aggregated fuzzy weights )
~
(
ij
w of each criterion are calculated as ) , , (
~
3 2 1 j j j j
w w w w =

where:
} { } {
3 3
1
2 2 1 1
max
1
min
jk
k
j
K
k
jk j jk
k
j
w w w
K
w w w = = =

=

(4-3)

Step 3: Compute the fuzzy decision matrix.
The fuzzy decision matrix for the alternatives )
~
(D

and the criteria )
~
(W is constructed as follows:
4 3 2 1
C C C C

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n j m i
x x x
x x x
x x x
A
A
A
A
D
mn m m
n
n
,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 ,
~
...
~ ~
... ... ... ...
~
...
~ ~
~
...
~ ~
~
2 1
2 22 21
1 12 11
4
3
2
1
= =
=

(4-4)

)
~
,...,
~
,
~
(
~
2 1 n
w w w W =
(4-5)

Step 4: Normalize the fuzzy decision matrix.
The raw data are normalized using linear scale transformation to bring the various
criteria scales into a comparable scale. The normalized fuzzy decision matrix R
~
is given
by:

[ ] n j m i r R
n m ij
,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 ,
~
~
= = =
(4-6)

Where
) ( max , ,
~
criteria benefit c c and
c
c
c
b
c
a
r
ij
i
j
j
ij
j
ij
j
ij
ij
=
=

(4-7)

) (cos min , ,
~
criteria t a a and
a
a
b
a
c
a
r
ij
i
j
ij
j
ij
j
ij
j
ij
=
=

(4-8)

Step 5: Compute the weighted normalized matrix.
The weighted normalized matrix V
~
for criteria is computed by multiplying the weights
)
~
(
j
w of evaluation criteria with the normalized fuzzy decision matrix
ij
r
~

[ ]
j ij ij n m ij
w r v where n j m i v V
~
(.)
~ ~
,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 ,
~
~
= = = =

(4-9)

Step 6: Compute the fuzzy positive ideal solution (FPIS) and fuzzy negative ideal
solution (FNIS).
The FPIS and FNIS of the alternatives are computed as follows:

} { n j m i v v where v v v A
ij
i
j n
,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 , max
~
),
~
,...,
~
,
~
(
3 2 1
= = = =
+

(4-10)

} { n j m i v v where v v v A
ij
i
j n
,..., 1 ; ,..., 1 , min
~
),
~
,...,
~
,
~
(
1 2 1
= = = =

(4-11)

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Step 7: Compute the distance of each alternative from FPIS and FNIS.
The distance ) , (

i i
d d of each weighted alternative m i ,..., 1 = from the FPIS and the FNIS is
computed as follows:
( ) m i v v d d
n
j
j ij v i
,..., 1 ,
~
,
~
1
= =
=

(4-12)

( ) m i v v d d
n
j
j ij v i
,..., 1 ,
~
,
~
1
= =
=

(4-13)

Where
)
~
,
~
( b a d
v
is the distance measurement between two fuzzy numbers a
~
and b
~
.
Step 8: Compute the closeness coefficient
) (
i
CC
of each alternative.
The closeness coefficient
i
CC represents the distances to the fuzzy positive ideal solution
) (
*
A and the fuzzy negative ideal solution ) (

A simultaneously. The closeness coefficient
of each alternative is calculated as:

m i
d d
d
CC
i i
i
i
,..., 1 , =
+
=
+

(4-14)

Step 9: Rank the alternatives.
In step 9, the different alternatives are ranked according to the closeness coefficient
i
CC

in decreasing order. The best alternative is closest to the FPIS and farthest from the
FNIS.

Warehouse location selection under uncertainty
The proposed framework for warehouse location selection under uncertainty consists of
two steps:
Selection of evaluation criteria.
Evaluation and selection of best alternative using selected criteria.
These steps are presented in detail as follows.

Criteria selection
The first step involves selection of criteria for warehouse location. In this study, 15
criteria were used for the selection of warehouse location. These criteria were selected
from the studies of Min and Melachrinoudis [41], Alberto [1] and MacCarthy and
Atthrirawong [39], Demirel et al. [18] and Dogan [19]. The definitions of the criteria are
summarized as follows:
1. Labor costs: Labor costs are the criterion that changes with respect to the life conditions
at alternative locations.

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2. Transportation costs: Transportation costs vary according to the economic structure of the
alternative regions, transportation facilities and alternative transportation types as air,
land, railroad, and marine.
3. Handling costs: Handling costs, which is caused by the storage of the goods, are the costs
that are composed of capital, work power, equipment and risk costs and vary from a
region to another region.
4. Land cost: Land cost is considered as a criterion that differs from one region to another.
The cost of land for a warehouse is one of the major costly elements in this investment.
5. Skilled labor: This criterion defines the ideal personnel for a work, who has qualities to
perform such work and who is trained, qualified. This is one of the requirements in
order to perform a work timely and in a qualified manner. The skilled labor may not be
at the desired level at each location.
6. Availability of labor force: Availability of labor force is a criterion that changes based on the
level of development in the region, training levels, and population structure.
7. Land availability: Land availability is a criterion that changes according to the structure of
the alternative regions.
8. Climate: Climate is a criterion that varies from a region to another. Significant climate
fluctuations and severe weather conditions disrupt the business as well as affecting
human efficiency.
9. Existence of modes of transportation: This criterion has an importance based on the
availability of different transportation types in the location.
10. Telecommunication systems: Telecommunication systems are a criterion that defines the
communication facilities and communication technologies of the warehouse with the
customer nodes, the producers or the suppliers.
11. Quality and reliability of modes of transportation: This criterion defines the transportation
service between the customer nodes, suppliers, and the warehouse, to be performed in a
reliable and qualified way based on the different transportation modes. Reliable and
quality service means timely delivery, delivery to the correct location and undamaged
delivery of the goods.
12. Quality and reliability of utilities: Quality and reliability of utilities are considered as a
criterion that differs from one region to another and is a criterion that changes based on
the level of development in the region.
13. Proximity to customers: This criterion defines the distance of the warehouse location to the
customer nodes.
14. Proximity to suppliers or producers: This criterion defines the distance of the warehouse
location to the suppliers and the producers.
15. Lead times and responsiveness: This criterion defines the ability and the period to fulfill an
order.

These criteria are shown in Table 1. To express the criteria easier, the symbols in Table
1 were generated.

Alternatives evaluation and selection using fuzzy TOPSIS
The second step involves allocation of linguistic ratings to the 15 criteria and the
potential alternatives for each of the criteria by the decision makers or experts. The
alternative ratings for each of the criteria from Table 2 and the criteria ratings are
provided from Table 3. The linguistics terms are then transformed to fuzzy triangular
numbers. Then, fuzzy TOPSIS (Section 4) is applied to aggregate the criteria and the

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alternative ratings to generate an overall score for warehouse location selection. The
highest score is selected as the best alternative for warehouse location.

Case Study
Entekhab industrial group, a big company in Iran, wants to decide on where it will
locate its new warehouse. The alternative locations have been determined by the five
experts
) and , , , (
5 4 3 2 1
D D D D D
of the company: Isfahan ) (
1
A , Arak ) (
2
A , Rasht ) (
3
A , Urmia ) (
4
A ,
Tabriz ) (
5
A .The criteria used for evaluation are same as presented in Table 1. The
committee used linguistic assessments (Tables 2 and 3) to rate the 15 criteria (Table 1)
and the five alternatives
). and , , , (
5 4 3 2 1
A A A A A

The results are shown in Tables 4 and 5
respectively. Then, the aggregated fuzzy weights
)
~
(
ij
W
of each criterion are calculated
using Eq. (4-3) and the aggregate fuzzy weights of the alternatives are computed using
Eq. (4-2). The results are presented in Table 6 and 7 respectively. In the next step, we
perform normalization of the fuzzy decision matrix of alternatives using Eqs. ((4-6), (4-
7) and (4-8)). Next, the fuzzy weighted decision matrix for the five alternatives is
constructed using Eq. (4-9). Then, the fuzzy positive ideal solution ) (
*
A and the fuzzy
negative ideal solutions ) (

A are computed using Eqs. (4-10), (4-11) for the five
alternatives. Then, the distance (.)
v
d

of each alternative from the fuzzy positive ideal
matrix ) (
*
A and fuzzy negative ideal matrix ) (

A are determined according to Eqs. (4-12)
and (4-13) as given in Tables 8. using distances
*
i
d and
i
d (Eq. (4-14)), we compute the
closeness coefficient
) (
i
CC
of the five alternatives. The final results are shown in Table
9. By comparing the
i
CC

values of the five alternatives (Table 9), we find
that
3 4 5 2 1
A A A A A > > > >
. Therefore, alternative Isfahan ) (
1
A is recommended as warehouse
location.

Conclusion
A warehouse location selection is a multi-criteria decision-making problem including
both quantitative and qualitative. In this paper, we present a multi-criteria decision
making approach for warehouse location selection under fuzzy environment. The
proposed approach comprises of two steps. In step 1, the criteria for warehouse location
selection are identified. These criteria are labor costs, transportation costs, handling
costs, land cost, skilled labor, availability of labor force, land availability, climate,
existence of modes of transportation, telecommunication systems, quality and reliability
of modes of transportation, quality and reliability of utilities, proximity to Customers,
proximity to producer, lead times and responsiveness. In step 2, the experts provide
linguistic ratings to the criteria and the alternatives. Fuzzy TOPSIS is used to aggregate
the ratings and generate an overall performance score for measuring each alternative.
The alternative with the highest score is selected as the best warehouse location
selection. The warehouse location selection problem in this paper can be solved by
fuzzy AHP and the obtained results can be compared for further research.

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References
[1] Alberto, P. (2000). The logistics of industrial location decisions: An application of the analytical
hierarchy process methodology. International J ournal of Logistics: Research and Application, Vol. 3,
No. 3, pp. 273-289.
[2] Arostegui, M. A., Kadipasaoglu, S. N., and Khumawala, B. M. (2006). An empirical comparison of
Tabu search, simulated annealing, and genetic algorithms for facilities location problems.
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Tables and Figures

Table 1: Warehouse selection criteria.
Criteria Symbol
Labor costs C
1

Transportation costs C
2

Handling costs C
3

Land cost C
4

Skilled labor C
5

Availability of labor force C
6

Land availability C
7

Climate C
8

Existence of modes of transportation C
9

Telecommunication systems C
10

Quality and reliability of modes of transportation C
11

Quality and reliability of utilities C
12

Proximity to Customers C
13

Proximity to producer C
14

Lead Times and responsiveness C
15

Table 2: Linguistic terms for alternative ratings.
Linguistic term Membership function
Very Poor (VP) (0,0,1)
Poor (0,1,3)
Medium Poor (MP) (1,3,5)
Fair (F) (3,5,7)
Medium Good (MG) (5,7,9)
Good (G) (7,9,10)
Very good (VG) (9,10,10)

Figure 1. A triangular fuzzy number, M
~

M
~
u
) (y r
M
M
m
) (y l
M
l
1
0

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Table 3: Linguistic terms for criteria ratings.
Linguistic term Membership function
Very Low (VL) (0,0,1)
Low (L) (0,1,3)
Medium Low (ML) (1,3,5)
Medium (M) (3,5,7)
Medium High (MH) (5,7,9)
High (H) (7,9,10)
Very High (VH) (9,10,10)

Table 4: Linguistic assessments for the 15 criteria.
Criteria Decision makers
D
1
D
2
D
3
D
4
D
5

C
1
ML MH MH ML M
C
2
H VH VH H H
C
3
H MH H H MH
C
4
MH H MH MH M
C
5
MH MH MH M MH
C
6
ML M M ML ML
C
7
MH H MH MH MH
C
8
ML ML ML M ML
C
9
MH H MH MH MH
C
10
M H M H H
C
11
VH VH VH VH VH
C
12
ML MH M M ML
C
13
H H VH H VH
C
14
VH VH H H H
C
15
VH H H H VH

Table 6: Aggregate fuzzy criteria weight
Criteria

Weight
C
1
(1,5,9)
C
2
(5,8.8,10)
C
3
(3,6.2,9)
C
4
(3,7.4,10)
C
5
(5,8.8,10)
C
6
(1,5.4,9)
C
7
(1,4.6,9)
C
8
(5,8.2,10)
C
9
(7,9.4,10)
C
10
(7,9.4,10)
C
11
(3,5.8,9)
C
12
(3,6.6,9)
C
13
(5,8.8,10)
C
14
(3,7.4,10)
C
15
(3,7.4,10)
C
16
(3,7,10)

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C
1
5

C
1
4

C
1
3

C
1
2

C
1
1

C
1
0

C
9

C
8

C
7

C
6

C
5

C
4

C
3

C
2

C
1

Criteria

V
G

V
G

G

G

M
G

M
G

G

G

G

G

G

M
P

G

G

G

D
1

V
G

V
G

M
G

M
G

G

F

V
G

M
G

G

G

G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

D
2

G

G

G

M
G

G

M
G

G

G

G

M
G

M
G

M
P

M
G

M
G

G

D
3

G

V
G

G

G

G

M
G

G

G

M
G

G

G

M
P

G

G

G

D
4

G

G

G

G

G

M
G

V
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

V
G

M
P

G

G

G

D
5

A
1

G

G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

F

F

D
1

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

F

F

M
G

F

D
2

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

G

F

M
G

F

M
P

F

F

M
G

D
3

M
G

G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

D
4

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

G

F

G

M
G

F

M
G

G

F

M
G

M
G

F

D
5

A
2

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

F

F

M
G

M
P

M
G

F

F

D
1

F

F

F

F

F

F

F

M
G

M
G

F

F

M
P

F

F

F

D
2

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

F

F

F

F

M
G

D
3

G

M
G

G

M
G

F

F

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

D
4

F

F

F

F

M
G

F

M
G

F

F

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

F

F

D
5

A
3

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
G

M
P

M
G

F

F

D
1

F

F

F

M
G

F

F

F

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
P

M
G

M
G

F

D
2

G

F

G

F

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

F

F

F

M
G

M
G

D
3

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

D
4

F

F

F

F

F

F

F

F

F

M
G

F

F

M
G

F

F

D
5

A
4

G

M
G

G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
P

M
G

M
G

M
G

D
1

G

F

G

M
G

M
G

F

G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

D
2

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

F

F

M
G

M
G

D
3

G

F

G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

G

D
4

M
G

F

M
G

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

F

F

M
G

M
G

F

M
G

F

F

D
5

A
5

A
l
t
e
r
n
a
t
i
v
e
T
a
b
l
e

5
:

L
i
n
g
u
i
s
t
i
c

a
s
s
e
s
s
m
e
n
t
s

f
o
r

t
h
e

t
h
r
e
e

a
l
t
e
r
n
a
t
i
v
e
s
.

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Table 7: Aggregate fuzzy decision matrix
Criteria Alternative
A
1
A
2
A
3
A
4
A
5
C
1
(5,8.6,10) (3,5.8,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,7,10)
C
2
(5,8.2,10) (3,6.2,9) (3,5.4,9) (3,6.2,9) (3,6.6,9)
C
3
(5,8.2,10) (3,6.2,9) (3,6.2,9) (3,6.6,9) (3,6.6,9)
C
4
(1,3.4,7) (1,4.6,7) (1,4.2,7) (1,4.2,7) (1,4.6,7)
C
5
(5,8.8,10) (3,7,10) (3,6.2,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,6.6,9)
C
6
(5,8.2,10) (5,7,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,6.6,9) (5,7,9)
C
7
(5,8.2,10) (3,5.4,9) (3,6.2,9) (3,6.2,9) (3,6.6,9)
C
8
(5,8.2,10) (5,7.8,10) (3,6.6,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,6.6,9)
C
9
(7,9.4,10) (5,7.4,10) (3,6.2,9) (3,6.2,9) (5,7.4,10)
C
10
(3,6.6,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,5,7) (3,5.4,9) (3,5.4,9)
C
11
(5,8.6,10) (5,7.4,10) (3,6.2,9) (3,6.2,9) (5,7,9)
C
12
(5,8.2,10) (5,7,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,5.8,9) (3,6.6,9)
C
13
(5,8.6,10) (3,6.6,9) (3,6.6,10) (3,6.6,10) (5,8.2,10)
C
14
(7,9.6,10) (5,7.8,10) (3,6.2,9) (3,5.4,9) (3,5.4,9)
C
15
(7,9.4,10) (5,7.4,10) (3,6.6,10) (3,6.6,10) (5,8.2,10)

Table 8: Distance ) , (
1

A A d
v

and ) , (
1

A A d
v
for alternatives.

Criteria d
+
d
-

A
1
A
2
A
3
A
4
A
5
A
1
A
2
A
3
A
4
A
5
C
1
5.608 6.157 6.157 6.157 5.943 5.53 4.747 4.747 4.747 5.352
C
2
3.979 5.19 5.405 5.19 5.093 5.652 4.528 4.338 4.528 4.635
C
3
4.725 5.698 5.698 5.607 5.607 5.789 4.799 4.799 4.884 4.884
C
4
6.712 6.345 6.461 6.461 6.345 5.786 6.028 5.94 5.94 6.028
C
5
4.706 5.316 5.493 5.573 5.416 5.479 5.146 4.547 4.488 4.611
C
6
4.372 4.53 4.774 4.675 4.53 4.198 3.724 3.634 3.691 3.724
C
7
4.889 6.036 5.846 5.846 5.757 5.601 4.564 4.683 4.683 4.75
C
8
4.472 4.515 4.761 4.853 4.761 4.128 4.101 3.641 3.596 3.641
C
9
4.144 5.057 5.846 5.846 5.057 5.945 5.449 4.683 4.683 5.449
C
10
5.829 6.01 6.341 6.108 6.108 5.791 5.633 4.306 5.563 5.563
C
11
3.277 3.512 4.786 4.786 3.663 5.518 5.119 4.161 4.161 4.525
C
12
5.761 5.957 6.234 6.234 6.112 5.409 4.81 4.706 4.706 4.772
C
13
3.912 5.093 5.06 5.06 3.979 5.779 4.635 5.14 5.14 5.652
C
14
2.998 4.057 5.19 5.405 5.405 6.277 5.53 4.528 4.338 4.338
C
15
3.02 4.144 5.06 5.06 3.979 6.208 5.415 5.14 5.14 5.652

Table 9: Closeness coefficient
) (
i
CC

of the three alternatives

A
1
A
2
A
3
A
4
A
5

i
d 68.404 77.618 83.115 82.863 77.754
i
d 83.088 74.228 68.993 70.287 73.576
i
CC
0.5485 0.4888 0.4536 0.4589 0.4862

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