  The primary aim of the study is to introduce APLOCO method which is developed
for the solution of multicriteria decision making problems both theoretically
and practically. In this context, application subject of APLACO constitutes
evaluation of investment potential of different cities in metropolitan status
in Turkey. The secondary purpose of the study is to identify the independent
variables affecting the factories in the operating phase and to estimate the
effect levels of independent variables on the dependent variable in the
organized industrial zones (OIZs), whose mission is to reduce regional
development disparities and to mobilize local production dynamics. For this
purpose, the effect levels of independent variables on dependent variables have
been determined using the multilayer perceptron (MLP) method, which has a wide
use in artificial neural networks (ANNs). The effect levels derived from MLP
have been then used as the weight levels of the decision criteria in APLOCO.
The independent variables included in MLP are also used as the decision
criteria in APLOCO. According to the results obtained from APLOCO, Istanbul
city is the best alternative in term of the investment potential and other
alternatives are Manisa, Denizli, Izmir, Kocaeli, Bursa, Ankara, Adana, and
Antalya, respectively. Although APLOCO is used to solve the ranking problem in
order to show application process in the paper, it can be employed easily in
the solution of classification and selection problems. On the other hand, the
study also shows a rare example of the nested usage of APLOCO which is one of
the methods of operation research as well as MLP used in determination of
weights.
