A Framework for Achieving Sustainable Criteria for Automobile Supply Chain Using Fuzzy BWM–QFD Approach

Abstract

The journey towards a sustainable future can only succeed with the efforts of global businesses. Sustainability has become the prerequisite for any businesses that thrive to capture customer attention and long-term value creation. In Indian context, building an ecosystem of corporate sustainability is task, which many industries are focusing on. The present study aims in understanding the requirements of Indian automobile sector, so as to aid the business practitioners in developing a sustainable business model. These industries need to invest towards green and circular economy; hence, the basic planning should be towards understanding the stakeholder requirements and identifying the various criteria that could be used for ensuring a balance between the economic, social and environmental aspects. This is the main motivation behind the present study. The focus of present study is to identify the major sustainability criteria which can fulfil the stakeholder requirement and lead the industry towards sustainable manufacturing of products. In this study, we have employed fuzzy best–worst method (BWM) and quality function development (QFD) model for determining the weights of the sustainability criteria which meet the stakeholder requirement. Fuzzy set theory is being incorporated in the study, so as to capture the linguistic aspect of the decision making. By using linguistic judgments, the uncertainty or the ambiguity of the respondents can be incorporated. Hence, a combination of fuzzy theory and BWM has been used in the present study. The present study is being validated using the case of Indian automobile sector.