A review on TOPSIS method and its extensions for different applications with recent development

Abstract

The main objective of the study is to review different types of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems that are analysed by using the fuzzy TOPSIS method and its different variants. An effort has been made to review different studies in which either the TOPSIS method is used or its extensions have been developed to analyse any real-life MCDM problem. A total of 184 research papers were carefully selected and reviewed from 83 reputed journals published by Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor and Francis, and others from 1981 to the first quarter of 2023. These papers are selected on the basis of different kinds of applications in the fields of mathematics, engineering, science, environment, technology, management, business, etc. The selected papers are further categorised based on the application areas, publication year, contributions of the countries, authors, journals, and type of research. This study will give an idea of different types of TOPSIS methods, their extensions, and applications, along with recent trends in diverse research fields. Based on the findings, it is observed that in recent years, the number of papers in which TOPSIS and its extensions have been used has increased exponentially.