Apply Fuzzy DEMATEL to Explore the Decisive Factors of the Auto Lighting Aftermarket Industry in Taiwan

Abstract

Continuous improvement and innovation are solid foundations for the company to maintain excellent performance and competitive advantage. As the limited resources possessed by companies generally result in the incapability of implementing several improving plans simultaneously, researchers advocate that companies should evaluate the influential relationships among key success factors (KSFs) to explore the more dominant determinants for designing improving actions. This study focused on the auto lighting aftermarket (AM) industry in which the KSFs have not yet been adequately performed to explore the decisive criteria of an improvement strategy. After a literature review and a survey of experts, a preliminary list of suitable evaluation criteria was derived. Consequently, the fuzzy and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method were employed to analyze and establish the causal relationship among criteria. This study contributes to the auto lighting AM industry by using a novel approach for identifying and prioritizing the KSFs. The result indicates that product integrity was the “cause” construct on the constructs of operating cost, quality and brand, technology development, and customer satisfaction. These findings contribute to help practitioners better design effective improvement strategies.