An integrated fuzzy decision support system for multicriterion decision-making problems

Abstract

In order to compete effectively in today's rapidly changing world economy, decision making should be made fast and accurate, especially when many tangible and intangible factors are considered together. Making decisions to implement advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) is a good example. However, not all AMT implementations are successful because most of the conventional investment justification criteria are built on tangible factors, such as cost reduction, only. Intangiabl long-term benefits such as improvement in quality, increase in flexibility, and fast delivery are always disregarded. The objective of this paper is to present an integrated approach, which incorporates different approaches (e.g. strategic, economic and analytic evaluations) for assessing the benefits among several alternative proposals, such as implementing AMT, by a fuzzy multicriterion decision-making method.