An application of grey based decision making approach for the selection of manufacturing system

Abstract

Purpose – In the current customer-driven market, the manufacturers have to be highly responsive and flexible to deliver a variety of products. Hence, to meet this dynamic and uncertain market changes, the production system, which enables the manufacturing of such variety of products should be able to meet such diverse, dynamic changes. Hence, selecting a suitable manufacturing system is a key strategic decision for today's manufacturing organization, which needs to survive in these uncertain market conditions. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to present a decision-making model for selecting the best manufacturing system and also discuss the criteria on the basis of which the management can select the same. Design/methodology/approach – A case of small- and medium-sized company is presented, in which the management is deciding to establish a most suitable manufacturing system. To supplement this, a suitable multi-criteria decision-making model (MCDM), the grey approach is used to analyze manufacturing system alternatives based on various decision criteria to arrive a comparative ranking. Findings – An extensive analysis of grey-based decision-making model described grey decision matrix, grey normalized decision matrix, grey weighted normalized decision matrix and grey possibility degrees for three alternatives revealed that lean manufacturing systems was found to be the most suitable manufacturing system among three alternatives for a given case. Research limitations/implications – The same study can be extended by including sub-criteria with main criteria for selection of manufacturing system by utilizing two MCDM techniques such as AHP or ANP with Grey approach. Practical implications – The Grey approach has been discussed in a detailed way and it will be useful for the managers to use this approach as a tool for solving similar type of decision-making problems in their organizations in the future. Originality/value – Although, the problem of selecting a suitable manufacturing system is often addressed both in practice and research, very few reports are available in the literature of Grey-based decision models that demonstrated its application for selecting a suitable manufacturing systems.