A multi-criteria group decision framework for partner grouping when sharing facilities

The site location is an important strategic decision for a company and usually incorporates several conflicting criteria. Therefore, multicriteria decisions methods are more and more used in this context. On the same time, another increasing trend is cooperative relationships where partners or even rivals work together to collectively enhance their performances by sharing resources. This paper presents a novel multi-phase approach to aid partners to address the following questions in the location problem context: ‘Where and with whom should the company locate its business?’ A case study is described where final year students are looking for a flat to share in London.