A Modular Simos-Roy-Figueira framework for tailored weight elicitation in multi-Criteria decision aiding

The Simos-Roy-Figueira (SRF) deck-of-cards procedure is widely recognized as an intuitive method for eliciting criteria weights in outranking Multiple Criteria Decision Aiding (MCDA) methods. However, its numerous extensions, covering imprecise or fuzzy inputs, robustness analysis, hierarchical criteria structures, and diverse communication protocols, have developed independently. Although these variants share the same underlying deck-of-cards mechanism and are, in principle, mutually compatible, the literature offers little guidance on how to combine them coherently or design new SRF configurations for a given decision context. This paper fills that gap by introducing a modular SRF framework that decomposes existing and new methods into a set of interoperable building blocks, each with an explicit linear (or mixed-integer) programming formulation. The main novelty of the framework is threefold: (i) it unifies the main SRF variants as special cases of a common constraint system; (ii) it embeds generic models for consistency checking, inconsistency diagnosis and minimal restoration directly in that system; and (iii) it operationalizes these modules through a guided questionnaire that helps analysts and decision makers select appropriate configurations and derive the corresponding optimization models. The resulting modular SRF framework offers MCDA practitioners, researchers and actual Decision Makers (DMs) a transparent, user-configurable approach that preserves the rigor of outranking methods, while significantly enhancing practical flexibility and user experience. We demonstrate the framework’s versatility through two case studies, each providing custom SRF results, enriched with additional considerations, such as uncertainty and robustness analysis.