An integrated fuzzy QFD and grey decision-making approach for supply chain collaborative quality design of large complex products

Abstract

Complex structure and high technical barriers make it difficult for manufacturers to design new products independently, hence supply chain collaborative design prevails. Supply chain collaborative design has been discussed in the literature and multiple effective methods have been proposed. Nevertheless, the systematic framework for collaboration has been scarcely addressed, and multi-objective decision-making with uncertain information and poor data is still a research difficulty. This paper proposes a novel collaborative quality design framework for large complex products supply chain by integrating the fuzzy QFD (quality function deployment) and the grey decision-making approach. The proposed method exerts QFD design deployment function to decompose design tasks to all participants in the supply chain systematically, from overall design to detailed design. The joint design team composed of supply chain participants, can effectively ensure that all design phases are aligned with the general design objective. In addition to market competitiveness and quality, multi-objective assessments are developed in the fuzzy QFD to make the design method more practical. Moreover, a weighted multi-attribute grey target decision-making method assists decision-makers to identify the optimal quality scheme with uncertain information and poor data. The proposed framework is applied to a new launch vehicle design in China to illustrate its effectiveness. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.