Location selection by multi-criteria decision-making methods based on objective and subjective weightings

The location selection is a strategic decision that significantly influences revenue, level of competition, and success of companies and countries. This study aims to propose a hybrid approach for the location selection, to evaluate the potential location for the automotive manufacturing plant of Turkey, and to reveal a comprehensive analysis of weighting and multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. The proposed approach integrates different objective and subjective weighting, MCDM, and Copeland methods. Turkey has recently introduced its first automobile prototypes and has announced that the manufacturing plant will be located in Bursa. This decision is thoroughly examined via four objective weighting methods-entropy, criteria importance through inter-criteria correlation, standard deviation, and mean weight and a subjective method-analytic hierarchy process. Besides, the alternatives are evaluated based on six MCDM methods-technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution, preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations, vise kriterijumska optimizacija i kompromisno resenje, organization, rangement et synthese de donnes relationnelles, elimination and choice translating reality, and the weighted sum method. The outcomes of the weighting methods and MCDM methods, the impact of the attribute weights provided by each method on rankings, the outcome of each method pair, and selection of the best location (Bursa) are thoroughly evaluated considering a real-world case with a potential outcome that makes evaluations more realistic and tangible unlike most of the other studies in the literature. In this regard, Spearman's rank correlation coefficients are considered. Also, sensitivity analysis is conducted to reveal the robustness of the methods and the impact of each weight on outcomes. Some considerable results, including the most robust method and optimal method pairs for the case, are presented.