Determination of Interaction Between Criteria and the Criteria Priorities in Laptop Selection Problem

Abstract

The statistic of global laptop shipment showed that 161.6 million laptops were sold, 65.23% more than desktop-PCs, and almost the same quantity as tablets in 2017. So, laptop demand is quite high and needs to be researched on what kind of criteria (properties) are crucial. Since there are more than one criteria, this study focuses on multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods in selecting laptops. This study aims to determine the interaction between criteria, and the criteria priorities in laptop selection problem that can be added/changing new features every day and to present the findings/results to the researcher/decision-makers. DEMATEL method is used for determining the interactions which are not observed in laptop literature, and fuzzy AHP is for criteria priorities. The price and brand image of a laptop have more interrelated action than the other main criteria. According to results, the brand image is determined as the most important criteria. Along with the brand image, other/peripheral properties and price criteria have totally two-thirds priority among six main criteria. The brand image along with the price had a dominant effect on other criteria according to the interaction matrices/diagrams. This study also shows that criteria priority results should be considered along with interaction matrices/diagrams that may produce such following information: speed, storage, monitor and other/peripheral properties criteria have overall effecting feature but not strongly, while brand image is a transition criterion along with having the highest priority, and the price criterion is obviously being affected by all criteria.