A comprehensive literature review on ELECTRE method

Abstract

The origins of ELECTRE methods go back to 1965 at the European consultancy company SEMA, which is still active today. B. Roy was consulted and soon tried to find a new method to overcome the limitations of the old methods. The ELECTRE method for choosing the best action(s) from a group of actions was introduced in 1965, and was later referred to as ELECTRE I (electre one). In that same year the new multiple criteria outranking method was presented for the first time at a conference in Rome (Italy). Nevertheless, the original ideas of ELECTRE methods were first merely published as a research report in 1966, the notorious Note de Travail 49 de la SEMA. Shortly after its appearance, ELECTRE I was found to be successful when applied to a vast range of fields, but the method did not become widely known until 1968 when it was published in RIRO, la Revue d’Informatique et de Recherche Opérationnelle