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A Hierarchical Group Decision-Making Approach for New Product Selection in a Fuzzy Environment

  • Research Article - Systems Engineering
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Abstract

Selecting the most appropriate new product(s) is regarded as a critical decision impacting the economic success of manufacturing companies. In the new product development process, there are different evaluation attributes typically considered by a group of experts, which often can be structured in a multiple level hierarchy. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new hybrid hierarchical multiple attribute group decision-making approach for evaluating and selecting new product ideas in a fuzzy environment. A hierarchical weighting method is first applied to assess the attributes’ weights by using pair-wise comparisons. This method reduces the number of required pair-wise comparisons effectively. Then, to rank the new product ideas, a fuzzy extension of the classical compromise solution method, namely, VIKOR, is proposed. This method is based upon a simple parameterized distance metric along with a new fuzzy group aggregation approach in order to calculate the ranking index of each alternative by using the triangular fuzzy numbers. Furthermore, a case study in a home appliance manufacturer is provided to illustrate the proposed hybrid approach and demonstrate its applicability. Finally, concluding remarks and future research directions are reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    S. Meysam Mousavi, S. Ali Torabi & Reza Tavakkoli-Moghaddam

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  1. S. Meysam Mousavi
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  2. S. Ali Torabi
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  3. Reza Tavakkoli-Moghaddam
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Correspondence to S. Meysam Mousavi.

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Mousavi, S.M., Torabi, S.A. & Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, R. A Hierarchical Group Decision-Making Approach for New Product Selection in a Fuzzy Environment. Arab J Sci Eng 38, 3233–3248 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-012-0430-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-012-0430-z

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