a goal programming procedure to best-worst method

The best-worst method (bwm) is a tool in multiple criteria decision making(mcdm), one of the young pairwise comparison methods. obtaining the weight (priority) vector of decision elements (criteria or decision alternatives) in this approach is as important as other pairwise comparison methods in the mcdm (e.g., the analytic hierarchy process (ahp)). in this paper, a goal programming (gp) method is proposed that produces the local weight vector of the decision elements. the proposed method, compared to the procedures in the relevant literature, in addition to being linear, has fewer number of constraints and in case the decision is consistent or inconsistent, with each number of decision elements, produces a uniqueoptimal solution. if the best (or the worst) decision element is not unique, it generates a logical weights. also, the method can produce a true weight vector for a perfectly consistent decision and is easy to use in practice.