A hybrid intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making approach for supplier selection

Abstract

Due to the increasing competition of globalization, selection of the most appropriate supplier is one of the key factors for asupply chain management's success. Due to conflicting evaluations and insufficient information about the criteria, Intuitionisticfuzzy sets (IFSs) considered as animpressive tool and utilized to specify the relative importance of the criteria. The aim of this paper is to develop a new approach for solving the decision making processes. Thusan intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making approach is proposed. Interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy ordered weighted aggregation (IIFOWA) is utilized to aggregate individual opinions of decision makers into a group opinion. A linear programming model is used to obtain the weights of the criteria.Then acombined approach based onGRAand TOPSIS method is introduced and applied to the ranking and selection of the alternatives. Finally a numerical example for supplier selection is given to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. A combined method based on GRA and TOPSIS associated with intuitionistic fuzzy set has enormous chance of success for multi-criteria decision-making problems due to containing vague perception of decision makers' opinions. Therefore, in future, intuitionistic fuzzy set can be used for dealing with uncertainty in multi-criteria decision-making problems such as project selection, manufacturing systems, pattern recognition, medical diagnosis and many other areas of management decision problems.