A group decision-making approach for supplier selection in configuration design: A case study

Abstract

In this paper, an innovative yet simple and efficient method is proposed for supplier selection for product design (configuration design). This proposed method is based on group decision-making under uncertainty. Configuration design involves many uncertain factors that their exact relative or absolute importance and their internal interactions could not be easily determined. For this reason, the proposed method determines the most effective criteria for supplier selection by consulting with experts and by the use of deduction. The opinions of different experts (possibly conflicting opinions) are aggregated in each step of the proposed method without any loss of opinions. The proposed method extracts three factors (most optimistic, the most common, and the most pessimistic opinion) from initial decision matrices and constructs a triangular fuzzy number for both the importance of the weight of the criteria and the ratings of each alternative. By so doing, the group decision-making problem is transformed to a singular decision-making problem. The proposed method is developed and tested via a real and comprehensive case study of an automobile company. In conclusion, the assessment and future research directions are presented.