ITARA and ELECTRE III three-way decision model in the spherical fuzzy environment and its application in customer selection

Abstract

As COVID-19 swept through, production in various industries was affected. Epidemic control leads to logistical disruptions from time to time and suppliers have to make production and shipping decisions after analyzing the customer’s situation. Therefore, the majority of manufacturers need to establish effective methods for the selection of distribution customers. The method presented in this paper can classify customers into three regions and rank their status to help suppliers effectively make decisions. The three-way decision (3WD) is a well-known fast sorting method in multi-attribute decision-making (MADM). In this paper, we proposed the 3WD model based on Indifference Threshold based Attribute Ratio Analysis (ITARA), ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalite III (ELLECTRE III) in the spherical fuzzy environment. Then, we used the SF-ITARA-ELECTRE III-3WD method to select the suitable customers for dispensing. In addition, comparison with the conventional SF-PROMETHEE-3WD, SF-EVAMIX-3WD, SF-TOPSIS-3WD and SF-VIKOR-3WD are created to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. An effective risk-averse solution to the MADM problem for spherical fuzzy environment is provided.