A Comprehensive Survey and Literature Review on TOPSIS

Theoretical Foundations Of Topsis

TOPSIS theoretical foundations provide decision-makers with a systematic method for evaluating and ranking alternatives based on several competing criteria. The premise underlying TOPSIS is that decision-makers must select from several options, each of which is defined by several characteristics. The objective is to identify the optimal option that meets all of these criteria (Shanian & Savadogo, 2006). In essence, TOPSIS seeks the solution that is the most distant from the positive and negative ideal solutions (Siregar, 2019).

These are the key concepts that support the functionality of TOPSIS. The optimal solution is a hypothetical point in the decision space where the criteria are maximized (benefit) or minimized (cost), and it represents the best outcome conceivable for each criterion. The gap between alternatives and this optimal solution measures performance. In contrast, the negative ideal solution yields the worst results for each criterion. In addition to the ideal solution, the distances from this negative ideal solution are computed. The core of TOPSIS is determining how near or similar each alternative is to these ideals, frequently employing distance metrics such as Euclidean and Manhattan distances. This method yields a preference function that incorporates normalized distances and weights to determine the final ranking of alternatives (Shih & Olson, 2022; Unutmaz Durmuşoğlu & Durmuşoğlu, 2021).