An Approach Based on MCDA and Fuzzy Logic to Select Joint Actions

Abstract

To satisfy a fluctuating demand and achieve a high level of quality and service, companies must take into account several features when designing new products in order to become or remain market leaders. When a single company is unable to meet this objective alone, it is appropriate for it to join its actions with other companies. The product design consists of the complex task to select from various potential actions that allowing the fulfilment of several requirements: functional, technical, environmental, economic, security, etc. Furthermore, the task is even more difficult when actions are related to distinct services or companies that do not necessarily know the capacities of each others which makes complex the coordination of joint actions. Interactions between services may be affected by antagonist personal interests.

Based on a multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and a fuzzy model that links actions to the satisfaction of objectives, this paper proposes to treat two extreme views related to the collective selection of the necessary actions to design a product: (1) The first point of view corresponds to an ideal situation where each service reveals its capacities and the unique objective is to succeed in the realization of the common goal; (2) the second point of view corresponds to a more realistic situation where only necessary information for the progress of collective action are shared and where collective and personal goals coexist and are to be taken into account. The first situation corresponds to a classical case where a single decision maker (DM) has to express his preferences then a classical optimization problem under constraints has to be solved in order to efficiently select actions. In the second situation the services do not share the same preferences and each service wants to maximize its gain, in this case we propose to build a negotiated solution between services.