The Sixth International Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Conference is one of a biennial series that serve as a forum for exchange of the latest information and new developments in this rapidly growing field. Participants are carefully chosen from among scholars and practitioners so that widely ranging perspectives and disciplines are represented; this insures the dissemination of valuable new know­ ledge to those scholars, policy-makers and industrial analysts who will best utilize and share it, both in developed and in third-world countries. The Sixth Internaitona1 MCDM Conference was held from June 4 to 8, 1984, at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. The Conference program reflects the evolution of the field from infancy through adolescence to maturity, as marked by the progression from single-objective modeling and optimization to multiple-objective deci­ sion making. Because the theoreticians, practitioners and students who attend these MCDM conferences necessarily have different needs and expectations, the program now offers fewer monologues and more panels, overview papers and tutorial sessions, focusing on case studies and other practical experiences.