Determining the utility in management by using multi-criteria decision support tools: a review

Abstract The multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) utility-determining techniques are considered to be new development techniques that have been recently presented, extended and used by some scholars. In the current work, an attempt is made to present a systematic review of methodologies and applications of the MCDM utility-determining techniques discussed in recent years. The researchers reviewed 86 papers, describing the use of the MCDM utility-determining techniques, which were published in the period 2004–2015 in more than 42 scientific journals. They mainly refer to the area of management and are extracted from online databases, such as Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. According to the classification used by the researchers, the papers were grouped based on the five main MCDM utility-determining techniques, including stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA), the weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS), the additive ratio assessment (ARAS), the method of complex proportional assessment (COPRAS), multi-objective optimisation by ratio analysis (MOORA) and MULTIMOORA (MOORA plus a full multiplicative form). Furthermore, the papers were categorised taking into account their authors, publication date, journal name, the technique and method used, research objectives, research gap and problem, solution and modelling and, finally, the results and findings. The results of this study show that, in 2013, scholars published more papers on the MCDM utility-determining techniques than in other years. It is also worth noting that a group of COPRAS methods (COPRAS-Grey and COPRAS-Fuzzy) was ranked number one among the methods used in this area. With regard to journals, the Journal of Civil Engineering and Management was ranked first in the list of journals, which contributed to this review.


Introduction
In operations research, mathematical modelling and sophisticated statistical analysis have been used for solving a number of business and organisational problems and improving a decision-making process. Due to the increasing complexity of the business environment, companies rely on analysis to make decisions, which were formerly based on managers' intuition. Operations research provides the required tools for government agencies and large companies to make better decisions to reduce risks, and to enhance the quality of their performance. Challenges associated with the development of technology and global economy complicated the business environment even more. The operations research based on the advanced software tools and sophisticated mathematical models can help to evaluate all the options available to a firm with respect to possible project outcomes and perform the analysis of risks associated with making particular decisions. The results obtained in these analyses present the complete information, based on which managers can make the required decisions and work out an appropriate policy. As an effective framework, multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) was widely used to evaluate a finite number of decision alternatives with multiple criteria. It was used in diverse scientific fields, such as business and in solving the problem of sustainability. In solving many real-world problems, it is difficult for decision-makers to precisely assess performance ratings and criteria weight (Hatami-Marbini, Tavana, Moradi, & Kangi, 2013). The fuzzy set of Zadeh (1965) has been found to be particularly suitable for describing the ambiguities when decision options associated with the solution of MCDM problems are evaluated. Various scholars proposed different methods in the framework of multi-attribute utility theory for multi-criteria decision-making in previous years.
Various new MCDM methods and techniques of multi-criteria decision-making were used in a number of projects in different areas, especially in the field of management and engineering projects related to construction management, energy saving, etc. Moreover, some new techniques for using multi criteria analysis (MCA) of particular projects were extended by scholars in previous years. These techniques are as follows: complex determination, which is important for considering qualitative and quantitative characteristics (e.g., complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) method) (Zavadskas, Kaklauskas, Banaitis, & Kvederyte, 2004;Kaklauskas, Zavadskas, Raslanas, Ginevicius, Komka, & Malinauskas, 2006) and the method of multiobjective optimisation by ratio analysis (MOORA) (Brauers & Zavadskas, 2006). The presented techniques had some practical implications; for example, MOORA and COPRAS techniques were applied to multi-attribute evaluation in making road design solutions and to assessing the sustainability of residential areas in Vilnius (Zavadskas, Kaklauskas, Tuskis, & Tamosaitiene, 2008c).
In management and engineering, one of the most persistent problems refers to making optimal decisions in particular situations. For example, in management and engineering, researchers are often faced with different problems associated with the need for making effective decisions. Management and engineering projects are considered to be complex projects associated with situations where robust decisions should be made. These decisions are made at various stages of management and engineering project development. For example, decisions are made at the stage of feasibility study prior to design, procurement and construction stages to identify the viability of the project undertaken by an investor. Decision-making in the field of management and engineering often faces the need to deal with hazardous phenomena. They include industrial accidents, causing damage to the built property, as well as structural failures, extreme natural phenomena and dangerous human activities. Proper decisions made by architects and civil engineers might reduce the risk posed by the above-mentioned phenomena. Decision-making in this field might be facilitated by applying some formal methods, such as MCDM, as well as discrete or continuous optimisation methods. Most, if not all, decisions are usually made under uncertainty. The failure probability analysis is an effective tool for decision-making on the reliability of structures. The factors referring to decision-making can be identified by using the methods of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of mathematical model outputs. The sensitivity analysis is crucial for understanding and applying complex mathematical models to the investigation of the reliability problems associated with bearing structures. All the terms, describing the ranking of influence, importance and dominance, are related to uncertainty and sensitivity analysis.
Previous studies were based on methods and techniques offered by the scholars of that time. However, the conducted surveys did not keep up with the changing situation in this field. Therefore, the researchers believe that there is a need for a systematic review of the most important recent studies conducted in the considered area. In addition, the researchers think that there is a need for a comprehensive paper combining the available studies and methods. The presented review attempts to systematically describe some previous studies that employed the considered methods and techniques. In addition, this paper attempts to discuss the exponentially growing interest in the MCDM methods and techniques and provide comprehensive literature on the MCDM methodologies and applications. This paper makes three contributions to this area of study; first, by developing a classification scheme with practical considerations, structurally reviewing the literature with the aim of presenting a guide to these studies of MCDM methods offered by previous scholars, and some recommendations for future studies. Moreover, the current study takes into consideration some new perspectives in reviewing the articles, such as categorisation of the papers based on their authors, publication date, journal name, the technique and method used, research objectives, research gap and problem solution, as well as modelling and, finally, the results and findings. The remaining part of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature on the decision-making techniques. Section 3 presents the research methodology and the procedure used in the study. Section 4 provides the findings of this review based on the literature describing the application areas, objectives and problems. Section 5 discusses the results based on the research problems. Finally, Section 6 presents the conclusion, limitations of the research and recommendations for future studies.
The related literature covers a number of classifications of MCDM tools with fuzzy theory sets. For example, Peneva and Popchev (2008) stated that if the weights were given as real numbers, the operators, such as weighted arithmetic means (Chiclana, Herrera, & Herrera-Viedma, 1998), ordered weighted maximum (OWMAX) and minimum (OWMIN) (Fodor & Roubens, 1995) and the ordered weighted geometric operator (Chiclana, Herrera, & Herrera-Viedma, 2000) could be applied to the aggregation of fuzzy relations. In the mathematical model, there are operators whose weights do not adequately represent them: Min, Max, MaxMin, gamma and generalised mean (da Costa Sousa & Kaymak, 2001). The idea of using the given weights in this case is offered in Yager (1994). The two other categories proposed by Hwang, Chen, and Hwang (1992) include the ways for finding a ranking based on the degree of optimality, linguistic ranking methods and the comparison function, as well as Hamming distance, proportion to the ideal, fuzzy mean and spread, centroid index, left and right scores and area measurement. The second category contains the methods, employing different ways of evaluating the relative significance of multi-attributes, including analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy simple additive weighting methods, fuzzy outranking methods, fuzzy conjunctive/disjunctive methods and maximin methods. Inuiguchi, Ichihashi, and Tanaka (1990) performed a study of recent developments in fuzzy programming. In their work, they employed such applications as flexible programming, possibilistic programming, possibilistic linear programming with fuzzy goals, possibilistic programming with fuzzy preference relations, possibilistic linear programming using fuzzy max and robust programming.
Based on the relationship among the aggregated arguments, the aggregation operators can be roughly divided into two classes: the operators that consider the dependence of aggregated arguments and those that consider these arguments independently. In the case of the first class, Yager (1988) introduced the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator for reordering the arguments prior to their aggregation. This operator motivated Chiclana et al. (2000) and Xu and Da (2002) to propose the ordered weighted geometric (OWG) operator. Yager (2004) used the continuous interval-valued arguments to develop the continuous ordered weighted averaging (C-OWA) operator. Torra (2010) and Torra and Narukawa (2009) developed the hesitant fuzzy sets (HFSs) concept to present the hesitant fuzzy information, which covers the arguments with a set of possible values. It is considered to be an efficient new tool for collecting and representing the arguments under uncertainty, particularly, in the decision-making process. Zhu, Xu, and Xia (2012) investigated the Geometric Bonferroni Means (BMs) combined with hesitant fuzzy information and introduced the hesitant fuzzy geometric BMs (HFGBM). Yu, Wu, and Zhou (2012) developed the generalised hesitant fuzzy BM (GHFBM), with its application in the multi-criteria group decision-making.
The aggregation techniques had a great influence on the MCDM problems, and the aggregation operators were widely applied to MCDM. In a fuzzy environment, Chen and Tan (1994) developed several functions for measuring the extent to which each alternative is suitable with respect to a set of the criteria used in MCDM. Hong and Choi (2000) used the maximum and minimum operations for developing some approximate techniques to address the MCDM problems. Moreover, the aggregation operators extended to the intuitionistic fuzzy environment of intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) (Atanassov, 1986) play a significant role for basic elements that reflect preference values or judgements of decision-makers. Li (2005) designed several linear programming models and introduced the respective decision-making methods by means of IFSs. Liu, and Wang (2007) proposed a series of score functions to be applied to solving MCDM problems in accordance with the evaluation functions and the intuitionistic fuzzy point operators. Based on the interval-valued IFSs, Chen, Wang, and Lu (2011) offered a method of multi-criteria group decision-making. However, very few studies were focused on the MCDM problems under the hesitant fuzzy environment. Furthermore, in the decision-making process, hesitancy and uncertainty are generally considered as unavoidable problems. To express the evaluation information of decision-makers more objectively, several improved tools, including a fuzzy set (Zadeh, 1965), an intuitionistic fuzzy set (Atanassov, 1986) and a fuzzy multi-set (Miyamoto, Liu, & Kunii, 2000;Yager, 1986), as well as a linguistic fuzzy set (Xu, 2004a;Xu, 2004b) and type-2 fuzzy set (Dubois & Prade, 1980), were offered in the literature.
The MCDM methods can be applied effectively to determining the value and utility degree of management and engineering and establishing the priority order for their implementation (Turskis, 2008). Using these methods, the problem of evaluating a discrete set of alternatives can be examined based on a set of decision criteria. Different criteria represent various dimensions of the alternatives; as a result, they might conflict. For example, in the construction processes, complex decisions, involving a number of conflicting and interactive criteria are analysed. As a result, the MCDM theory was provided with the elements of mathematical statistics and MCDM methodology, considering statistical relations between the developed criteria. In this regard, some scholars in recent years have attempted to develop, extend and present new MCDM methods and techniques, as well as utility-determining approaches.
The present review paper attempts to systematically describe the techniques and methods offered and used by individual scholars (Table 1).
Although previous studies applied various MCDM utility-determining techniques to different fields of management and engineering, such as the construction management, Lin, Chang, and Lin (2011) used the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and fuzzy Delphi method to evaluate the performance of a knowledge management system (Radziszewski, Nazarko, Vilutiene, & et al. 2016). In the field of equipment and material selection, Ulubeyli and Kazaz (2009) and Akadiri, Olomolaiye, and Chinyio (2013) employed ELECTRE III, FAHP and AHP for selecting pumps and new materials, as well as sustainable materials. In the transportation field, Cheng and Li (2005) ranked railroad projects by using AHP and the artificial neural network (ANN). In the building field, Kahraman and Kaya (2012) and Kaya and Kahraman (2014) integrated multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT), TOPSIS and AHP to evaluate intelligent buildings. In the construction project field, Pinter and Psunder (2013), Gudiene, Banaitis, Podvezko, and Banaitiene (2014) and Antucheviciene, Zakarevicius, and Zavadskas (2010) used M-TOPSIS, TOPSIS and AHP for assessing the projects and evaluating the construction management. In the field of assessing the construction contractor, Nieto-Morote and Ruz-Vila (2012) used F-TOPSIS, while in the field of bidding strategy, Chou, Pham, and Wang (2013) proposed a new bidding strategy by using FAHP and regression-based simulation. Some studies, including the work of Kucukvar, Gumus, Egilmez, and Tatari (2014), employed F-TOPSIS to evaluate the performance to identify the pavement problems. Wang, Yu, Yang, Lin, Lee, and Cheng (2013), Mohammadi, Sadi, Nateghi, Abdullah, and Skitmore (2014), Jaskowski, Biruk, and Bucon (2010) and Safa, Shahi, Haas, and Hipel (2014) used AHP and ANP, FAHP and TOPSIS for selecting the contractor, project managers and the supplier, while Marcic, Ceric, and Kovacevic (2013) employed the AHP approach for selecting a field-testing method. Regarding the evaluation of performance efficiency in semiconductor companies, Hsu (2015) used the VIKOR method. In the field of renewable energy, Ertay, Kahraman, and Kaya (2013) evaluated renewable energy components by using FAHP. Jato-Espino, Castillo-Lopez, Rodriguez-Hernandez, and Canteras-Jordana (2014) published an article where they presented the application of MCDM methods in management and engineering. In this review paper, AHP, TOPSIS, PROMETHEE, VIKOR, ELECTRE, SAW, DEA, as well as the utility theory, COPRAS, ANP, Delphi, Grey systems theory and other methods used in management and engineering were discussed. However, their review only covered publications from 2004 to 2014, while earlier works were not cited. In their paper, some significant previously published articles including the article by Słowi nski (1986) on the problem of application of MCDM methods to planning the water supply system development were mentioned. On the other hand, Skibniewski and Chao (1992) were the first to use the AHP method in management and engineering. However, the processes of conducting, developing, extending and presenting new MCDM methods and techniques could not keep up with the changing situation.

Research method
Due to the existence of a wide range of applications of the MCDM utility-determining techniques in the real world, there is a strong motivation to categorise these applications in various areas and subareas. This paper reviews the literature to identify the articles which were published in popular journals and those that provided the most important information to practitioners and researchers who attempted to use or investigate the MCDM utility-determining techniques. To this aim, an extensive search aimed at finding the MCDM utility-determining techniques according to the titles, abstracts, keywords and research methodologies of the papers was made. This paper attempts to document the exponentially increased interest in using the MCDM utility-determining techniques and provide a systematic review of the related literature about the MCDM utility-determining technique applications and methodologies.

Literature search and article eligibility
According to the classification scheme, a reference repository, which includes a total of 86 published papers, describing the use of the MCDM utility-determining techniques (e.g., MOORA, COPRAS, COPRAS-F, COPRAS-G, ARAS, ARAS-G, ARAS-F, SWARA, MULTIMOORA and WASPAS) is presented. The papers are classified according to the publication date, technique and method, research objective, research gap and problem, solution and modelling, as well as the results and findings and the journals' names. The contributions of the current paper are in three areas as follows: enhancing the classification scheme by focusing on practical considerations, structurally reviewing the literature to guide the research on the MCDM utility-determining techniques and identifying related issues for future studies. Moreover, two new perspectives are taken into consideration in reviewing the articles, which include the categorisation of the papers according to the main five techniques and their categorisation based on research criteria. The researchers targeted two main library databases, such as Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar, which cover the journals presenting the MCDM utility-determining techniques. Items considered in the doctoral dissertations, master's theses, textbooks and unpublished papers were not included in this review. For finding 86 papers published in scientific journals, the researchers mainly considered international journals presenting MCDM utility-determining applications. Figure 1 shows the research methodology.
The following sections briefly describe the papers and summarise the topics in the tables based on the techniques used. In each table, the papers are summarised and highlighted according to their introductions, research methods, and the results of investigation.

Distribution of the MCDM utility-determining techniques
In recent years, research on the MCDM utility-determining techniques has been continued, and many applications of these techniques have been found in several fields. MCDM provides effective decision-making methods for domains where the selection of the best alternative is highly complicated. The current study provides a detailed review of the main trends of considering the MCDM theory and practice.  purpose of the review is to identify various MCDM utility-determining techniques used in previous studies and to suggest approaches that could be most effectively applied to identifying the best alternative. MCDM utility-determining techniques were used in many areas, especially in management and engineering. MCDM methods help to choose the best alternatives based on multiple criteria. The best alternative can be determined by analysing the scopes and weights of the criteria and selecting the optimum ones, using any MCDM technique. The current review closely shows the process of enhancing various MCDM utility-determining techniques and their applications in management and engineering and other fields from various perspectives. In total, 86 papers were classified according to the applied five MCDM utility-determining techniques, such as (1) SWARA, (2) WASPAS, (3) ARAS, (4) COPRAS and (5) MOORA and MULTIMOORA ( Figure 1). The sections below provide a systematic review of 86 papers and categorise them into 10 application areas. In the step described below, all papers will be presented in separate tables and each application area will be generally described based on their authors, publication date, the technique and method used, research objective, research gap and problem, as well as solution and modelling, results and findings and the journal's name. In the considered section, the papers were classified based on the applied techniques and then distributed based on the MCDM utility-determining techniques and publication years. The last section presents the papers based on the journals' distribution.

SWARA
There are several kinds of MADM methods for criteria weight calculation in the literature. A decision-maker usually finds it more difficult to evaluate different criteria in a decision-making process. In addition, in some methods, the number of calculations is very great, and the accuracy of the methods is not very high. SWARA is a method where experts apply their own implicit knowledge, experiences and information. In addition, it is not considered to be complicated and time-consuming (Zolfani & Saparauskas, 2013). The main feature of the SWARA method is associated with its possibility of estimating the experts' or interest groups' opinions about the significance of the attributes in the process of weight determination (Kersuliene et al., 2010). The first criterion in ranking is considered to be most significant, while the last is least significant (Alimardani, Zolfani, Aghdaie, & Tamosaitiene, 2013). The final ranks are determined by a group of experts based on their average value (Kersuliene & Turskis, 2011). All past and recent studies, where SWARA methodology was used for a particular purpose, are as follows: Kersuliene and Turskis (2011) used it for architect selection; Kersuliene et al. (2010) employed it in rational dispute resolution method selection; Hashemkhani Zolfani, Aghdaie, Derakhti, Zavadskas, and Morshed Varzandeh (2013b) used it in the investigation of success factors of online games based on explorer; Hashemkhani Zolfani, Farrokhzad, and Turskis (2013b) also used it in decision-making on business issues with foresight perspective; Hashemkhani Zolfani and Saparauskas (2013) used it in prioritising the sustainability assessment indicators of an energy system; Alimardani et al. (2013) used it in agile supplier selection; and Hashemkhani Zolfani and Bahrami (2014) used it in investment-prioritising in high-tech industries. The SWARA technique methodology is presented in Figure 2. Table 2 presents the studies based on the application of SWARA technique. According to the data presented in this table, a total of nine studies described SWARA techniques that were combined with other techniques and applications. This table shows that one of these papers was published in 2015, three in 2014, four in 2013, one in 2011 and one in 2010. Most of the above-mentioned studies referred to the field of construction management. Table 2 presents all papers, considering the SWARA technique and its application.

WASPAS
The following section explains the WASPAS method, which is considered to be one of the most recent methods proposed in the literature. This method was designed on two bases, including the weighted product model (WPM) and the weighted sum model (WSM) (Zavadskas et al., 2012a). Zavadskas et al. et al. (2012a) proposed this new method and proved that this aggregated method performs more accurately than other approaches. The comprehensive research conducted recently by using WASPAS method is presented in the following sources: Staniunas, Medineckiene, Zavadskas, and Kalibatas (2013) employed it for ecological-economic assessment of multidwelling house modernisation; Zavadskas, Antucheviciene, Saparauskas, and Turskis (2013a) applied it to verification of robustness of methods in assessing the alternative solutions; Dejus and Antucheviciene (2013) used it for assessing health and safety solutions on the construction site; and Hashemkhani Zolfani et al. (2013b) applied it to decision-making with respect to business issues with foresight perspective. The methodology of WASPAS technique is presented in Figure 3. Table 3 presents the studies where the WASPAS technique was used. Based on the results presented in this table, a total of nine studies used WASPAS technique combined with other techniques and applications. This table shows that three papers were published in 2014 and six in 2013. All of these studies referred to the management and engineering field (see, for example, Bagocius, Zavadskas, & Turskis, 2014). Table 3 presents all papers using the WASPAS technique. (2010) proposed the ARAS method, which is a recently formed but easy-to-use and effective MCDM method. This method was applied to solve different decision-making problems. The fuzzy and grey extension of this method referred to as ARAS-Fuzzy (ARAS-F)  and ARAS-Gray (ARAS-G)  were developed. Only a few of the available studies have been mentioned in the present paper, including Zavadskas, Susinskas, Daniunas, Turskis, and Sivilevicius (2012b), Zavadskas, Turskis, and amosaitiene (2010b) and Bakshi and Sarkar (2011). The following steps describe the procedure of solving problems by using the ARAS method:

Zavadskas and Turskis
Step 1determine the optimal performance rating for each criterion after creating the decision matrix; Step 2calculate the normalised decision matrix; Step 3calculate the weighted normalised decision matrix; Step 4calculate the overall performance index for each alternative; Step 5 -calculation of the utility degree for each alternative; and Step 6rank the alternatives and/or select the most efficient ( Figure 4). Table 4 presents the papers that used ARAS technique. Based on the results presented in this table, a total of nine studies used ARAS, ARAS-F and ARAS-G techniques combined with other techniques and applications.

COPRAS
COPRAS is a method for ranking the alternatives for determining their preference order, which was improved by Zavadskas et al. (1994). They assumed direct and proportional dependences of the priority and utility degrees of the available alternatives in the presence of mutually conflicting criteria. Figure 5 presents the COPRAS technique methodology. This technique focuses on the alternatives' performance by considering various criteria and the corresponding criteria weights. By using the decision  The SWARA method could be applied to practical implementation of specialised decision support systems and alternative dispute resolution in a virtual environment It has been proved that successful selection of a rational method for dispute resolution is based on the attribute weight determination by using the SWARA method and the initial decisionmaking matrix normalised by applying the linear normalisation method approach, the direct and proportional dependence of the significance and utility degrees of the alternatives can be evaluated in a system of attributes, weights and the attributes' values. COPRAS attempts to find a solution by using the distance to the ideal solution and the distance to the ideal-worst solution, which are the best and the worst solutions, respectively. The degree of utility is determined by making a comparison between the analysed alternatives and the best one. The values of the utility degree are ranged between 0% and 100% and between the worst and the best  alternatives. The COPRAS method was effectively employed to solve different problems in construction management (Kaklauskas et al., 2006;Kaklauskas, Zavadskas, & Trinkunas, 2007;Zavadskas, Kaklauskas, Turskis, & Tamosaitiene, 2009b), economics, property management, etc. Zavadskas et al. (2008c) described the main ideas related to the COPRAS-G method. The idea of COPRAS-G about the criterion values expressed in intervals is based on real conditions of decision-making and applications of the Grey systems theory (Deng, 1982;Deng, 1988). In COPRAS-G, a stepwise evaluating procedure and ranking of the alternatives is used in terms of the utility degree and significance. In recent improvement of COPRAS, Uzsilaityte and Martinaitiss (2010) have compared several criteria of building renovation, which employed energy, environmental and economic criteria, and investigated the effect of renovation in the building's lifecycle; Chatterjee, Athawale, and Chakraborty (2011) used EVAMIX and COPRAS for selecting the materials; Podvezko (2011) used COPRAS and SAW for the comparative analysis of the MCDM approaches; and Chatterjee and Chakraborty (2012) used COPRAS-G for selecting the material in a manufacturing environment. The COPRAS-F method can be employed in cases when the criteria weights and alternative ratings are given in linguistic terms or expressed using trapezoidal or triangular fuzzy numbers. Table 5 Table 5 presents all papers that used the COPRAS technique.

MOORA and MULTIMOORA
Multi-objective optimisation, also known as multi-criteria or multi-attribute optimisation, is the process of simultaneous optimisation of two or more conflicting attributes (objectives) that are subject to some particular constraints. The MOORA method introduced by Brauers (2004) is a multi-objective optimisation technique, which can be successfully used for solving various types of complex decision-making problems   There is a need for MCAbased performance for evaluating projects The AHP is used for analysing the structure of the project selection problem and to assign the weights of the properties and the ARAS method is used to obtain the final ranking and select the best project The proposed method provides a simple approach of complexity theory to assess the alternative projects and select the best set of projects by using the described integration of the AHP and ARAS methods ARAS (continued) in the manufacturing environment. The MOORA method starts with a decision matrix showing the performance of different alternatives with respect to various attributes. The MOORA method employs a ratio system, where each performance rating of an alternative with respect to a particular criterion is compared to a denominator, which is representative of all alternatives concerning this criterion (Brauers & Zavadskas, 2012). For this denominator, the best choice is the square root of the sum of squares of each alternative per objective. Different units of performance ratings as well as their range of magnitude are normalised to convert the criteria to dimensionless attributes in the range of 0-1. The MOORA method relies on the reference point approach, implying that the chosen alternative should have the highest composite score which represents the difference between the sum of benefit (SOB) and the sum of non-benefit (SONB) scores. As mentioned above, the MOORA method was introduced by Brauers and Zavadskas (2006) on the basis of earlier investigations. Brauers and Zavadskas (2010) extended the MOORA method and made it more robust under the name of MULTIMOORA. This feature can be linear utility methods and decision criteria aimed at separating positive and negative criteria to optimise the above-mentioned options. These methods were applied in several studies (Balezentis, Valkauskas, & Balezentis, 2010;Brauers, Ginevicius, & Podvezko, 2010), which focused on regional studies, international comparisons and investment    The selection of an effective alternative of external building walls from a vast number of the available alternatives is an important problem in project management This paper considers the application of grey relational analysis to defining the utility of an alternative and a multi-criteria method (COPRAS-G) is proposed The results show that this method can be employed as an effective decision aid in multi-attribute selection Popovic, Stanujkic, and Stojanovic (2012) COPRAS and COPRAS-G Selected the investment project by applying COPRAS and COPRAS-G There is a need for selecting one or more investment projects based on the criteria of financial analysis The alternative projects' performances were expressed using crisp and interval values, and then the best project was selected from the available ones by applying The results of the work show that financial indicators are satisfactory and the project is exposed to the least risk, which means that the worth and risk (continued)  The results of the analysis demonstrated that, in the considered case, the replacement of district heating, mostly based on fossil fuel, with a biomass boiler is most effective in terms of the environment protection and energy saving Zavadskas, Kaklauskas, Turskis, and Tamosaitiene (2009b) COPRAS-G Used COPRAS-G for evaluating project managers The role of the construction project manager is very important in the process of construction. The construction process is risky and its success largely depends on the choice of the right project manager This paper considered the application of grey relations methodology to defining the utility of alternatives, and a multicriteria method of COPRAS-G was offered The results obtained demonstrate that this method may be used as an effective decision aid in multiattribute selection management. Figure 6 presents the methodology underlying the MULTIMOORA and MOORA techniques. Table 6 demonstrates the studies performed by using the MULTIMOORA and MOORA techniques. According to the results presented in this table, a total of 24 studies employed MULTIMOORA and MOORA techniques combined with other techniques and applications. Table 6 presents all studies which used the MULTIMOORA and MOORA techniques.

Distribution of papers based on the area of applications
In recent decades, research on MCDM has continued and many areas for its application have been found. MCDM provides effective decision-making methods in domains where the selection of the best alternative is very complicated. The current study reviews the main streams of considering the MCDM theory and practice in detail. The main purpose is to identify various MCDM utility-determining applications and approaches in several fields of management and engineering, and to suggest approaches which could be used most robustly and effectively to identify the best alternatives. The MCDM method has been applied to many domains of management and engineering. The MCDM method helps to choose the best alternatives in the presence of multiple criteria, while the best one can be obtained by analysing different scopes and weights of the criteria and the selection of the optimum ones is performed by using any MCDM utility-determining technique. This survey shows the development of various MCDM utility-determining methods and their applications in management and engineering. In total, 86 papers were classified into 10 areas: (1)  The selection of the GC design is a very important and a very complex problem The authors proposed a new multi-criteria decision-making model based on the ratio system as a part of the MOORA method, which helped to appropriately assess the GC designs According to decision-makers, k ¼ 0.5 and the considered GC designs were ranked in the following order: A3 A1 A2. According to the opinions of experts involved in selecting the most appropriate GC design, the obtained ranking order (continued)  energy source, (2) buildings, (3) material, (4) project management, (5) construction management, (6) resource allocation, (7) safety and health, (8) risk management, (9) sustainability assessment and (10) other areas. Regarding the MCDM utility-determining techniques and methods, the results given in this Figure 1 show that; previous scholars published more papers in the fields related to buildings than in other application areas. The information on other application areas is provided in Figure 7. The results presented in Table 7 give more than 42 scientific journals and conference publications using the considered MCDM utility-determining techniques. Based on the research findings, the Journal of Civil Engineering and Management was ranked first among the journals presented in this table, while Technological and Economic Development of Economy was ranked second and Procedia Engineering third among 42 journals considered in the work. The information about other journals is presented in Table 7. Other information related to the distribution of journals is given in Table 7. Figure 9 presents important evidence based on the frequency of distribution in terms of the year of publication. The results show that, from 2004 to 2015, the information about using the MCDM utility-determining tools and approaches presented by scholars has grown considerably. According to the findings of this section, the use of these tools and approaches in 2011 was mentioned in 21 papers, and their number increased to 24 papers in 2013. The use of MCDM utility-determining tools and approaches has been increasing every year.

Distribution of papers based on the publication year
Another interesting result in this table refers to the year 2013, when the MCDM utility-determining tools and techniques were used in the studies more often than in other years. This year shows the highest number of such publications, reaching 24. Accordingly, it can be noted that researchers use the MCDM utility-determining tools and approaches in their studies referring to different fields and categories, and it can be predicted that in the upcoming years their application will also increase. However, in 2014 and 2015, the number of publications decreased.

Discussion
This study attempted to review the papers on using the MCDM utility-determining techniques published in the period of about 12 years (i.e., [2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012][2013][2014][2015] in popular international journals accessible in databases such as Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. The first aim of this paper was to systematically review the conducted studies, based on using the MCDM utility-determining techniques, such as SWARA, WASPAS, COPRAS, MOORA, MULTIMOORA and ARAS, and which have been published in recent years. To this end, in the first step, a total of 86 published papers about MCDM utility-determining techniques were systematically and carefully chosen and summarised based on the title, abstract, introduction, research method and conclusion. In the next step, according to the predefined objectives of this study, the papers related to the MCDM utility-determining techniques were categorised. In addition, the researchers attempted to choose the papers describing the use of these techniques in engineering and management. The results of this review paper have shown that, in 2013, these techniques were employed by scholars in various interrelated fields of engineering and management (Figure 9). In addition, it has been found that, in terms of the frequency of using the MCDM utility-determining techniques, the COPRAS methods, including COPRAS-G and COPRAS-F, were applied more often than other techniques (Figure 7). Additionally, several international journals, making a total of 42 international journals from three popular databases, including Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar, were considered in the current review paper. The Journal of Civil Engineering and Management was ranked first among the considered journals in terms of using these techniques. The Journal of Technological and Economic Development of Economy was ranked second and Procedia Engineering third among the 42 considered journals. Most of the highly ranked journals in the current review were published by Taylor & Francis Group. The results obtained in this study are presented in Table 7. Journal of Business Economics and Management 1 5 In zinerin_ e ekonomika -Engineering Economics 2 6 Transport 2 7 Expert Systems with Applications 4 8 International Journal of Strategic Property Management 2 9 Archives of Civil and Mechanical Engineering 3 10 The 7th  Theory and Application 1 39 The Scientific World Journal 1 40 Zem_ es ukio mokslai 1 41 International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management 1 42 Grey Systems: Theory and Application 1

Concluding remarks
In selected techniques supporting process of management such as decision-making, fuzzy applications and theories, as well as different modelling techniques were offered and a number of suitable approaches were provided for modelling decision-aiding. The researchers focused on developing the alternatives to consider the complexity of the process. Choosing a problem solution approach and a model is associated with the actors involved in the process of decision-making, the desired goals, the available information, time, etc. The most important advantage of the MCDM techniques refers to their capability of addressing the problems which are marked by conflicting interests. Using these techniques, practitioners are able to solve problems that cannot be solved using the common optimisation models. This review paper is mainly focused on the overview of the applications of the MCDM utility-determining techniques, e.g., recent developments of these models of multi-criteria decision analysis. These techniques are being increasingly employed for evaluating the alternatives as well as for comparative analysis. Moreover, a number of significant concepts not addressed in previous studies are discussed. The researchers provided a systematic review of MCDM utility-determining techniques, including SWARA, WASPAS, COPRAS, MOORA, MULTIMOORA and ARAS, where the papers were classified into five different types. The results presented in this literature review have shown that engineering and management is an area most appropriate for using the MCDM utility-determining techniques. The researchers have shown that there is a great number of MCDM utility-determining techniques, and that several of these techniques had been used to solve problems related to engineering and management. The selection among the available MCDM utility-determining techniques can be considered a multi-criteria problem. In the current review, the researchers attempted to show the application of several MCDM utility-determining techniques to solving engineering and management problems. All the papers examined by the researchers considered different aspects of engineering based on different criteria. Moreover, this study confirms that the MCDM utility-determining techniques can help decision-makers and stakeholders to overcome some inherent uncertainties of engineering and management decisionmaking. Furthermore, it can be considered that environmental, economic, technological and social criteria, as well as the total cost, political and legislative factors, suppliers' factors, risk economic, technical environmental and social factors, labour expenditures, urban factors, external risk assessment, project risk assessment, quantitative and qualitative criteria, price, energy source, materials, labour, skilled labour, energy demand, CO 2 emission, investment and exploitation, cost efficiency of energy and power and capital investment, are regarded as the most commonly used criteria in several fields of engineering and management. The criteria weights directly influence the decision-making results, regarding all areas of engineering and management presented in the alternatives. The processes of evaluation and calculation in different fields of engineering and management decision-making are usually based on using the MCDM utility-determining techniques. It is necessary to apply different techniques and approaches to obtain the rankings of the alternatives referring to engineering and management and to ensure the validity of MCDM utility determination. It is believed that the results obtained by various mathematical methods are more rational, and more mathematical methods can contribute to solving engineering and management problems in the future. As long as the criteria and weights are used, MCDM techniques and approaches are appropriate to solve specific decision-making problems in engineering and management, and the MCDM utility-determining techniques can be viewed as a powerful tool for solving the problems in different fields of engineering and management. Typical engineering problems, such as design, assessment, inspection, maintenance planning and decommissioning may be considered to be decision problems, involving a combination of inherent modelling and statistical uncertainties. In several fields of engineering and management, such as construction management, the construction engineers, as well as engineering, project and asset managers are primarily responsible for the whole decision-making process regarding the expenditure of the infrastructure.
The use of the operations research methods, especially the MCDM techniques, is very important for resolving conflicts between different competing goals in pursuit of the environmental quality, economic prosperity, technological efficiency and social equity. According to the results of the current review, the researchers concluded that previous studies in the fields of engineering and management emphasised the development and application of the multi-criteria methods in the fields of engineering and management to promote the innovations based on the application of these methods, which can facilitate the collaboration of researchers working with the MCDM utility determining techniques in engineering and management and other research areas. Moreover, the current study covered various decision-making problems in engineering and management. These problems can be categorised into the following groups: problems associated with the construction process harmonisation, sustainable urban development, the creation, optimisation and reliability of decision support systems for designing rational technological processes, the application and improvement of the MCDM methods, the problems related to the created expert systems and application of expert methods in construction, lifetime engineering, complex analysis of a building lifecycle, the creation of the building lifecycle models, risk management assessment, the development of multi-criteria analysis in facilities management, as well as the analysis, modelling and forecasting in construction, equipment selection, enhancing the efficiency of e-commerce systems in construction, using MCDM support systems, material selection and the development of MCDM utility ¼ determining techniques for evaluating the level of economic development, especially, in the member states of the European Union.
This study aimed to review the papers that used the MCDM utility-determining techniques in the field of engineering and management and were published in the period from 2004 to 2015 in 42 international journals accessible in popular databases, such as Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Moreover, this study attempted to categorise the related papers according to the five main techniques: (1) SWARA, (2) WASPAS, (3) COPRAS (COPRAS-F and COPRAS-G), (4) MOORA and MULTIMOORA, (5) ARAS (ARAS-F and ARAS-G).
In fact, the MCDM methodology has been successfully used in various applications and industrial sectors. However, interdisciplinary and social decision problems should be emphasised. The study of the MCDM anatomy can be developed further. On the other hand, there are many other conventional MCDM techniques which have not yet been studied. Another recommendation for future research refers to the investigation of distinct differences and similarities among the MCDM utility-determining techniques. The insights provided in the present review help channel the research efforts and address the need of practitioners and researchers for an easy reference to MCDM publications and studies.
This study has some major limitations, which can be considered as an object of future studies. First, this review is focused on the use of the MCDM utility-determining techniques rather than on the old MCDM techniques. The articles published at the end of 2014 and in 2015 (if any) have not been included in the present paper because of the limited reporting time. The present review can be expanded for the future studies. Another limitation is that the data were collected from journals, while the examined documents did not include papers, textbooks, doctoral and master's theses and unpublished papers on the MCDM problems. Therefore, in future study, the data can be collected from these sources and the obtained results can be compared with the data obtained and reported in this study. One more limitation is that all the papers were extracted from the journals written in English, which implies that the scientific journals in other languages were not involved in the review. However, the researchers believe that this paper comprehensively reviewed most of the papers published by international journals. Moreover, the current review paper can provide future academic scholars with a better understanding of the MCDM utility-determining techniques. This study can be used by academics and managers as a basis for further research. It can also help practitioners make more appropriate decisions using these techniques and be a guide to scholars, improving the discussed methodologies. The authors of this paper carefully selected and summarised the available papers of several publishers in Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. However, a number of relevant outlets remained beyond the scope of the current study. Therefore, future researchers will be able to review the papers that are not considered in the current review. Another limitation is associated with the fact that the paper presents a review of numerous works on the problem of using the recently developed MCDM methods published in various journals. However, this review does not cover recent methods discussed in books.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.