ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27

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A fuzzy-QFD approach to supplier selection

M. Bevilacquaa,, F.E. Ciarapicab, G. Giacchettab
a
DIEM, sede di Forlı`, Università di Bologna, Via Fontanelle 40, 47100 Forlı`, Italy
b
Dipartimento di Energetica, Università di Ancona, via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Received 30 September 2002; received in revised form 21 December 2005; accepted 8 February 2006

Abstract

This article suggests a new method that transfers the house of quality (HOQ) approach typical of quality function deployment (QFD)
problems to the supplier selection process. To test its efficacy, the method is applied to a supplier selection process for a medium-to-large
industry that manufactures complete clutch couplings.
The study starts by identifying the features that the purchased product should have (internal variables ‘‘WHAT’’) in order to satisfy the
company’s needs, then it seeks to establish the relevant supplier assessment criteria (external variables ‘‘HOW’’) in order to come up with
a final ranking based on the fuzzy suitability index (FSI). The whole procedure was implemented using fuzzy numbers; the application of
a fuzzy algorithm allowed the company to define by means of linguistic variables the relative importance of the ‘‘WHAT’’, the
‘‘HOW’’–‘‘WHAT’’ correlation scores, the resulting weights of the ‘‘HOW’’ and the impact of each potential supplier.
Special attention is paid to the various subjective assessments in the HOQ process, and symmetrical triangular fuzzy numbers are
suggested to capture the vagueness in people’s verbal assessments.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Supplier selection; QFD; Fuzzy logic

1. Introduction variety of uncontrollable and unpredictable factors that

Leading business management publications emphasize
the need to understand manufacturing decisions and
practices for a firm to improve its competitive position.
Various publications argue that manufacturing decisions
and choices have to be consistent with the corporate
strategy for effective operations management. The aim of
this study was to get a better understanding of a particular,
strategic operating decision area, i.e. the supplier selection
process. As more manufacturing organizations are adopt-
ing TQM and JIT concepts, the role of the supplier and
supply chain management become increasingly important
(Verma and Pullman, 1998a, b). In a time of global markets
such as ours, the success of an enterprise often depends on
its ability to choose its suppliers. Supplier selection is
sometimes highly complex, since it incorporates a great
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 071 220 4874; fax: +39 071 220 4770.
E-mail address: m.bevilacqua@univpm.it (M. Bevilacqua).
affect the decisions involved.
All in all, this should prompt careful attention to the way
in which such decisions are reached and justified, and
would consequently suggest (among other things) the use
of decisional models to support procurement decision-
making. Moreover, supplier assessments or ratings should
be done routinely to ensure that incoming materials meet
relevant quality standards (Li et al., 1997). There is much
discussion on this topic in the literature and various
procedures have been proposed to help deal with the
problems posed by supplier selection. Several factors that
may complicate the decision-making process, such as
incomplete information, additional qualitative criteria
and imprecise preferences, are often not taken into account
(De Boer et al., 1998). In this article, we propose and
illustrate a decisional model for supplier selection that is
based on TQM methods such as quality function deploy-
ment (QFD), adopting an analysis based on fuzzy logic.
The paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, we
illustrate some of the topics that are considered strategic in

1478-4092/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pursup.2006.02.001
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M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27
the suppliers selection. In Section 3 the QFD methodology
and fuzzy logic are discussed. In Section 4, a case study of
an industry that manufactures complete clutch couplings is
used to illustrate the application of the proposed method.
Finally, a discussion of the fuzzy-QFD methodology and
the conclusions are presented in Sections 5 and 6.
2. Supplier selection
The procurement phase has been acknowledged a
strategic role and outside suppliers exert an ever increasing
influence on the success or failure of a business.
The following points describe some of the topics that are
considered strategic:
(1) The evolution in supplier–customer relations: Modern
procurement strategies demand new investigation methods,
especially where co-operation agreements are involved.
There has been a progressive change in the relationship
between buyer and vendor, in the sense that the conven-
tional idea of two opposite parties involved in short-term
negotiations has been replaced by more durable co-
operative relationships. Moreover, to ensure a market
advantage, companies tend to restrict the number of
suppliers they purchase from; this means that they establish
more stable and durable relations with a narrow group of
suppliers, thus obtaining significant cost savings and
ongoing quality improvements. This new approach charts
a very different course from the traditional multiple-source
approach, that was generally characterized by relations in
which orders were placed with suppliers who offered the
lowest price at a specific moment in time.
(2) The definition of assessment criteria for the specific
situation: Supplier selection decisions are complicated by
the fact that various criteria have to be considered in the
decision-making process (Weber et al., 1991). These criteria
may have quantitative as well as qualitative dimensions,
and may also be conflicting. Preference for a given supplier
is generally assumed to depend on an assessment, case-by-
case, of the quality, price, delivery and service he can
provide. The number and the set of the assessment criteria
involved should depend on the product/service in question.
A study carried out by Dempsey (1978) considered 20
different vendor attributes: though it offers some precious
insight into the decisional process, such an approach can
prove excessively complex and consequently pose some
problems. Parker (1990) claims that the majority of buyers
cannot take more than 8 or 9 factors into account in their
decision-making process, so researchers tend to develop
smaller, more customized sets of attributes as the final aim
of their research work. The relative importance of these
selection criteria has been estimated in various procure-
ment situations. To be more precise, Patton (1996)
demonstrated that the predictive capacity of supplier
selection models and the relative importance attributed to
the assessment criteria varies considerably according to the
nature of the choice that has to be made. In a market of
products destined for the industry, the features of the
15
products are a great deal more important than aspects
relating to customer support services or price (Bennion and
Redmond, 1994). In a comparative study of single-versus
multiple-source procurement situations involving different
types of industry and different products, it emerged that
the accent should focus on price, quality and delivery
methods in multiple-source situations, whereas technical
support and product reliability are more important in the
case of single-source purchasing situations (Lambert and
Harrington, 1989). According to Rich (1995), traditional
purchasing methods have often reflected a focus on tactical
price considerations, rarely extending the horizon to
embrace the true parameters of ‘‘strategy generation’’
and, as a consequence, the purchasing process has suffered
a prolonged absence from the corporate agenda. Price
myopia devalues the strategic nature of purchasing by
ignoring critical features of supplier management, such as
service levels and standards of operational performance. In
fact, there is a close correlation between price myopia,
constantly changing supply sources and poor operational
service levels. The criteria for developing a partnership with
a supply chain member organization are typically driven by
the expectation of quality, cost efficiency, delivery depend-
ability, volume flexibility, information and customer
service (Olhager and Selldin, 2004; Motwani et al., 1998;
Li et al., 1997; Choi and Hartley, 1996).
In literature not many works propose tools for the
identification of the best criteria for selecting suppliers.
Mandal and Deshmukh (1994) propose interpretive struc-
tural modeling (ISM) as a technique based on group
judgment to identify and summarize relationships between
supplier choice criteria through a graphical model. The
important vendor selection criteria have been analyzed to
obtain an ISM which shows the inter-relationship of
criteria and its levels. These criteria have also been
categorized depending on their driver power and depen-
dence. Dependent variables are very important for vendor
selection whereas independent variables are important for
vendor development. Mandal and Deshmukh include
among independent factors the vendor’s production facil-
ities and capacity, technical capability and financial
position. Vokurka et al. (1996) developed an expert system
that covers multiple phases in the supplier selection
process, among which there is the formulation of supplier
selection criteria. More recently Bharadwaj (2004) pro-
posed a cross-sectional survey to investigate whether a
difference exists in the decision criteria used by electronics
manufacturers in procuring differing component parts. The
survey results suggest that the content and structure of the
decision criteria used by business customers to assess their
suppliers do not differ across an array of electronic
components.
(3) Procedural problems: As in the majority of decisional
processes, supplier selection involves two basic but distinct
actions: assessing and choosing. The assessment phase
generally consists in identifying the attributes and criteria
relevant to the decision and consequently in measuring or
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16 M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27
ranking each supplier in the light of the previously
identified factors. Numerous formal methods have
been developed in the literature to take these procedural
aspects into account, based on particular conceptual
approaches.
In his review of Dickson’s (1966) classic analysis of the
problems of supplier selection, Weber et al. (1991)
examined the literature on supplier selection criteria and
identified several basic techniques and numerous models
emerging from research done over the previous 25 years.
He found that, in the main, they were linear weighting
models, numerical models such as the EOQ and, to a lesser
degree, probabilistic models.
Other authors that have dealt with the methods of
classification for supplier selection in literature are Holt
(1998), Degraeve et al. (2000) and De Boer et al. (2001).
In particular De Boer positioned the contributions in a
framework that takes into account the diversity of
procurement situations in terms of complexity and
importance and covers all phases in the supplier selection
process from initial problem definition, the formulation of
criteria, the qualification of potential suppliers, to the final
choice among the qualified suppliers.
Models for evaluating suppliers can be divided into two
groups on the basis of the structure they adopt: flat models
and hierarchical models. In the first group, there are
models and methods that consider all factors relevant to
the evaluation at the same level. The second group contains
all the models that require a structuring of criteria into a
hierarchical framework, the best known of which is the
analytic hierarchic process (AHP) proposed by many
authors (Nydick and Hill, 1992; Barbarosoglu and Yazgac,
1997; Yahya and Kingsman, 1999). Supplier selection is a
typical multi-attribute problem that involves both qualita-
tive and quantitative factors. To deal with this problem,
some authors have adopted other techniques, e.g. whole
number multiple-objective linear programming (Weber and
Ellram, 1993), total cost of ownership (Ellram, 1995;
Degraeve and Roodhooft, 1998, 1999, 2000) and statistical
methods (Mummalaneni et al., 1996). Being based on
purely mathematical data, these techniques have significant
drawbacks when they are used to consider qualitative
factors, which are very important in supplier selection,
especially when we need to develop supply management
strategies involving factors that are not easy to measure.
Other authors have tried to integrate qualitative and
quantitative aspects in the problem of supplier selection.
Since not every supplier selection criterion is quantitative,
usually only a few quantitative criteria are included in the
optimization formulation. This problem is recognized by
Ghodsypour and O’Brien (1998), who proposed an
integrated method that uses AHP and linear programming
to deal with both qualitative and quantitative criteria.
Following this philosophy, Sarkis and Talluri (2000)
proposed the analytical network process (ANP) technique
and Wang et al. (2004) proposed an integrated analytic
hierarchy process (AHP) and preemptive goal program-
ming (PGP) based on multi-criteria decision-making
methodology.
Models can also be classified by the rules they adopt to
integrate the complex and multi-attribute information they
use. Models can be ‘linear compensatory’ and ‘non-linear
non-compensatory’: the main difference is that the former
allow poor performance on one criterion to compensate for
good performance on another. All linear weighting
techniques are fully compensatory; De Boer et al. (1998)
and Grando and Sianesi (1996) have developed partially or
non-compensatory logic approaches.
Some innovative approaches, based on artificial intelli-
gence techniques such as Fuzzy Logic (Albino et al.,
1998; Morlacchi, 1999; Nassimbeni and Battain, 2000) and
neural nets (SiYng et al., 1997; Albino and Garavelli,
1998) match very well with decision-making situations
where supplier evaluation is also perceptive and decision-
makers express heterogeneous judgments. With respect
to Albino et al. (1998) approach to suppliers selection,
in this paper the integration of fuzzy set theory and
house of quality (HOQ) has been performed, providing
thus a structured tool to capture the inherent imprecision
and vagueness of decision-relevant inputs and to facilitate
the analysis of decision-relevant QFD information.
The hierarchical structure presented by Morlacchi (1999)
has been used to developed the model presented in
this paper, analyzing the supplier internal characteri-
stics and focusing on supplier critical capabilities (the
HOWs) so that to reach the desired product’s features (the
WHATs).
Other authors have used a QFD technique for supplier
selection. Ansari and Modarress (1994) discuss the roles of
suppliers in the various phases of QFD and advocate an
extensive involvement of suppliers throughout the devel-
opment process. Rich (1995) shows how QFD can be used
to evaluate potential suppliers in the automotive industry.
Through the HOQ matrix, Rich made a supplier assess-
ment based on customer expectations (‘‘what’’). The
Holmen and Kristensen (1998) study illustrates how the
HOQ, can be used in the pre-interactive stage of a single-
product development project, and how the identified
correlations and non-correlations between the character-
istics of the planned product can be used by a customer as a
practical approach for discrimination between the follow-
ing types of supplier: (1) those with whom the product
concept in question calls for development interaction
between two or more parties (e.g. initiated through the
formation of a joint development team), (2) those who can
contribute to the development on the basis of task
partitioning (e.g. initiated through a modular design
process), thereby avoiding the costly process of develop-
ment interaction, and (3) those well-known standard
suppliers of proprietary parts.
In this paper a further step has been provided respect to
this models. Selection of fuzzy logic as a means to represent
a QFD methodology seems natural, in particular when we
review Hisdal’s (1988) proposition: ‘‘Fuzzy logic can
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M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27 17

handle inexact information and verbal variables in a
mathematically well-defined way which simulates the
processing of information in natural-language communica-
tion. For example, expressions such as: ‘‘high competi-
tion’’, ‘‘low interference’’, ‘‘low impact’’, or ‘‘high
collaboration’’ are imprecise’’. These sentences in a natural
or synthetic language are the values of verbal variables
which represent linguistic concepts such as very low, low,
medium, and so on. The vagueness and imprecision in
QFD are also due to other reasons: (1) Formal mechanisms
for translating WHATs (which are generally qualitative)
into HOWs (which are usually quantitative) are lacking.
There are normally many WHATs for a product, each
WHAT can be translated into multiple HOWs, and
conversely a certain HOW may affect multiple WHATs.
In general, these WHATs tend to be translated into HOWs
in a subjective, qualitative and non-technical way, which
should be expressed in more quantitative and technical
terms. Hence, the relationships between WHATs and
HOWs are often vague or imprecise (Kim et al., 2000);
(2) Owing to the uncertainties in the selection process, the
data available for product design is often limited and may
be inaccurate, especially when an entirely new supplier is
selected, and a certain degree of vagueness is often
inevitable (Fung et al., 2002). In traditional QFD, most
of the input variables are assumed to be precise and are
treated as crisp numerical data. However, linguistic
variables expressed in fuzzy numbers seem more appro-
priate for describing those inputs in QFD.
Group decision-making is another important concern in
QFD. Multiple decision-makers are often preferred rather
than a single decision-maker (Chiclana et al., 1998; Herrera
et al., 2001) to avoid the bias and minimize the partiality in
the decision process (Lee and Kim, 2000). In this paper, the
weights assigned by the decision-makers were aggregated
using the average operator. This choice allowed us to make
a direct comparison between the QFD traditional method
and the proposed method without increasing the complex-
ity of the calculations (Section 5).
(4) Decision-model assessment: The last topic that is
considered strategic is checking the efficacy of the model
used. Revolving around Timmermans (1991) and Rohr-
mann’s (1986) works, De Boer and Van der Wegen (2003)
proposed 13 criteria for evaluation of the decision models
for supplier selection. These criteria try to assess the degree
the 13 criteria proposed by De Boer and Van der Wegen
(2003) to assess our model:
Criterion 1: Does the model aggregate information in a
proper way?
Criterion 2: Does the model sufficiently utilize available
information?,
Criterion 3: Is it (to a satisfactory extent) possible to
incorporate opinions and beliefs?
Criterion 4: Is it (to a satisfactory extent) possible to
achive a fair participation of individual members in case of
a group decision? whose discussion is reported in Section 5.
Criterion 6: Is the outcome of the decision model useful?
whose discussion is reported in Section 6.
Criterion 9: Is the model sufficiently user-friendly? whose
discussion is reported in Section 4.
Criterion 11: Does the decision model increase the insight
in the decision situation? whose discussion is reported in
Section 5.
3. Materials and methods
3.1. Quality function deployment
QFD belongs to the sphere of quality management
methods, offering us a linear and structured guideline for
converting the customer’s needs into specifications for, and
characteristics of new products and services. The method
involves developing four matrixes, or ‘houses’, that we
enter by degrees as a project for a given product or
production process is developed on increasingly specific
levels (Akao, 1990). In the present article, our attention
focuses on the Planning Matrix, or (HOQ) (Hauser and
Clausing, 1988) (Fig. 1).
(E)
Matrix for
correlating the How
Engin. Charact. (How) (C)
(A)
Relevance of What (B)

to which the models fit the complexity of the situation and (D)

seem useful from a cost/benefit perspective as well. The Customer
analysis developed by De Boer through the study of four Attributes
(What) Relations Matrix
cases reveals the importance of considering both the overall
usefulness of decision models for supplier selection and the
flexibility of a decision model in relation to the function of
providing structure throughout the process. Moreover the
decision models must improve the purchaser’s insight into
the decision situation by scrutinizing the very starting point
for engaging in a supplier selection process and making the Weight of the How (F)
purchaser’s own mental picture of the decision more
explicit. In this work, we take into consideration seven of Fig. 1. House of quality.
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18 M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27
The HOQ provides the specifications for product design
(or engineering characteristics) in terms of their relative
importance and of target values that have to be reached in
design and production. In a sense, the HOQ is the hub of
the whole QFD method: its construction enables us to
proceed from the customer’s requirements to the design
specifications (Schmidt, 1997; Fariborz and Rafael, 2002).
This paper describes the HOQ and its process following
the approaches suggested by Brown (1991), and Griffin and
Hauser (1992). Step 1: Identify the WHATs. The wanted
benefits in a product or service in the customer’s own
words are customer needs and are usually called customer
attributes (CA) or ‘‘WHATs’’, area (A) in Fig. 1. In
assigning priorities to WHATs, it is necessary to balance
efforts in order to accomplish those needs that add value to
the customer. The priorities are usually indicated in the
area designated as (B) in Fig. 1. Step 2: Determination of
HOWs. Engineering characteristics are specified as the
‘‘HOWs’’ of the HOQ and also called measurable
requirements. HOWs are identified by a multidisciplinary
team (Hauser, 1993) and positioned on the area marked as
(C) on the matrix diagram, Fig. 1. Step 3: Preparation of
the relationship matrix (D). A team judges which WHATs
impact which HOWs and to what degree. Step 4:
Elaboration of the correlation matrix. The physical
relationships among the technical requirements are speci-
fied on an array known as ‘‘the roof matrix’’ and identified
as (E) in Fig. 1. Step 5: Action plan. The weights of the
HOWs, identified as area (F), are placed at the base of the
quality matrix. These weights are one of the main outputs
of the HOQ, and are determined by
WeightðHOW Þi ¼ V ðHOW Þi1
impðWHAT 1 Þ
þ    þ V ðHOW Þin
impðWHAT n Þ,
where V(HOW)in is the correlation value of HOWi with
WHATn, and imp (WHATn) represents the importance or
priority of WHATn.
3.2. Fuzzy logic
In dealing with a decision process, the decision-maker is
often faced with doubts, problems and uncertainties. To
cope with and ‘‘handle’’ such uncertainties and inaccura-
cies, he generally relies on tools provided by probability
theory, accepting the principle that an inaccuracy, what-
ever its nature, is governed by random law. In a real
decision-making process, however, we have to deal with
different types of uncertainty and inaccuracy, each of
which needs to be treated with the aid of a specific tool.
Probability theory is fine for representing the stochastic
nature of decisional analysis, but is unable to measure the
inaccuracies or uncertainty that stem from human beha-
vior, which is neither stochastic nor random. The funda-
mental role of the decision-maker or other parties involved
in the decisional process poses a number of problems that
cannot be handled appropriately by probability theory.
Referring specifically to a multi-criterion analysis, this
means that the values of a certain alternative concerning a
given attribute often cannot be precisely defined, the
decision-maker is unable (or unwilling) to express his
preferences precisely, the evaluations or opinions are
expressed in linguistic terms, and so on. To deal with this
type of uncertainty correctly we can resort to fuzzy logic
(Zadeh, 1965). The logical tools that people can rely on are
generally considered the outcome of a bivalent logic (yes/
no, true/false), but the problems posed by real-life
situations and human thought processes and approaches
to problem-solving are by no means bivalent (Tong and
Bonissone, 1980). Just as conventional, bivalent logic is
based on classic sets, fuzzy logic is based on fuzzy sets. A
fuzzy set is a set of objects in which there is no clear-cut or
predefined boundary between the objects that are or are
not members of the set. The key concept behind this
definition is that of ‘‘membership’’: each element in a set is
associated with a value indicating to what degree the
element is a member of the set. This value comes within
the range [0,1], where 0 and 1, respectively, indicate the
minimum and maximum degree of membership, while all
the intermediate values indicate degrees of ‘‘partial’’
membership.
There are various types of fuzzy number, each of which
may be more suitable than others for analyzing a given
ambiguous structure; the present analysis uses triangular
fuzzy numbers. These numbers are represented by triplets
of the type A ¼ ðxL ; xa ; xR Þ, where xL and xR are
respectively the lower and upper limits of the fuzzy number
considered, while xa is the element that denotes the closest
fit. Triangular fuzzy numbers are often used to quantify
linguistic data. The use of triangular fitness functions is
fairly common in the literature (Karsak, 2004; Chan and
Wu, 2005), because triangular fuzzy numbers are among
the few fuzzy number forms that are easy to manage from
the computational point of view.
For instance, let U ¼ fVL; L; M; H; VHg be a linguistic
set used to express opinions on a group of attributes
(VL ¼ very low, L ¼ low, M ¼ medium, H ¼ high,
VH ¼ very high). The linguistic variables of U can be
quantified using triangular fuzzy numbers as follows
µA (x)
Degree of membership
VL L M H VH
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
x
Fig. 2. Linguistic scale for relative importance.
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M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27
(Fig. 2): VL-(0, 1, 2); L-(2, 3, 4); M-(4, 5, 6); H-(6, 7,
8); VH-(8, 9, 10)
The linguistic variable M for example means that the
decision-maker’s assessment contains elements of grades
xL ¼ 4 up to a grade xR ¼ 6, with a maximum degree of
membership in xa ¼ 5. The operations used in the present
work on triangular fuzzy numbers are presented in
Appendix A.
3.3. Fuzzy-QFD
Research on fuzzy-QFD has received a certain amount
of attention (Temponi et al., 1999; Harding et al., 2001),
and made substantial progress. Khoo and Ho (1996)
proposed an approach centered on the application of
possibility theory and fuzzy arithmetic to address the
ambiguity in QFD operations. Fung et al. (1998) developed
a hybrid system to incorporate the principles of QFD,
AHP, and fuzzy set theory to determine design targets.
Wang (1999) proposed a fuzzy outranking approach to
prioritize HOWs. Shen et al. (2001) proposed a fuzzy
procedure to examine the sensitivity of the ranking of
HOWs to the defuzzification strategy and degree of
fuzziness of fuzzy numbers. All these works aim to
determine a rating of the HOWs. In this paper we propose
for the first time the fuzzy-QFD methodology for suppliers
selection. The conceptual and procedural approach of the
HOQ remaines, though the roles have been inverted: in
traditional QFD applications, the company has to identify
its customers’ expectations and their relative importance
(external variables) in order to identify which design
characteristics (internal variables) should be allocated the
most resources; when the HOQ is used in supplier selection,
on the other hand, the company starts with the features
that the outsourced product/service must have in order to
meet certain requirements that the company has estab-
lished—and consequently knows very well (so the custo-
mer’s expectations become internal variables, since the
company itself is the customer)—and then tries to identify
which of the suppliers’ attributes (external variables) have
the greatest impact on the achievement of its established
objectives. Finally, we have used fuzzy suitability index FSI
to express the degree to which each supplier satisfies a given
requirement (Teng and Tzeng, 1996).
The choice of the best supplier involves ranking values
that are not defined conventionally. Various studies have
dealt with the ranking of fuzzy numbers. Yager (1981)
proposed a ranking method. This method is based upon the
idea of associating with a fuzzy number a scalar value, its
valuation, and then using this valuation to compare and
order the fuzzy numbers. Later Yager and Filev (1999)
improved this valuation method basing their work on
expected value type valuations, which are arise from the
transformation of fuzzy subset into an associated prob-
ability distribution. Lee and Li (1988) propose the use of a
generalized mean and standard deviation based on the
probability measures of fuzzy events to rank fuzzy
19
numbers. No single method has earned general consensus.
In the present case, we opted to follow the approach
described by Facchinetti et al. (1998), who made a
comparison between different fuzzy number ranking
methods. The chosen method is a convex combination
between the pessimistic and optimistic methods applied to
a triangular fuzzy number. The pessimistic combination
treats any discrepancy as a contradiction, while the
optimistic one treats it as rather an uncertainty (see
Appendix B).
4. Case study
To test the efficacy of the proposed method, it was
applied to a supplier selection process for a medium-to-
large industry that manufactures complete clutch cou-
plings. The analysis was performed for the selection of
clutch plate suppliers. The main features sought in this
component are an excellent design and a very accurate
construction to ensure a trouble-free, smooth operation
even at high production rates. More than 20 suppliers of
this type of component are currently available on the
market, but only 10 are in contact with the company at
present. The data used as input to implement the proposed
supplier selection method were collected by means of
interviews with three of the company’s buyers.
The whole supplier selection procedure is characterized
by the following steps:
(1) Identifying the characteristics that the product being
purchased must have (internal variables or ‘‘WHAT’’)
in order to meet the company’s needs.
(2) Identifying the criteria relevant to supplier assessment
(external variables or ‘‘HOW’’).
(3) Determining the relative importance of the ‘‘WHATs’’.
(4) Determining the ‘‘WHAT’’–‘‘HOW’’ correlation scores
and constructing the HOQ.
(5) Determining the wight of the ‘‘HOWs’’.
(6) Preparing the matrix for correlating the ‘‘HOWs’’.
(7) Determining each potential supplier’s impact on the
attributes considered (‘‘HOWs’’).
(8) Drawing up the final ranking on the FSI (fuzzy
suitability index).
The activities 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 have been made by
decision-makers (the three company’s buyers) without any
intervention of the authors. The activities 3, 5 and 8, they
had been developed, by the authors, through a model
implemented on a spreadsheet, in order to enable its
integration at the company in question. The spreadsheet
proved easy to handle, in terms of both its computational
complexity and the updating of its operating parameters
(Criterion 9 for the evaluation of the decision models, De
Boer and Van der Wegen, 2003). This software was
interfaced with the normal management of the company’s
purchasing processes.
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4.1. Identifying the ‘‘WHATs’’
There are generally six fundamental characteristics
required of products or services purchased from outside
suppliers by the company considered in this study:
(1) Product conformity, in terms of the manufacture and
performance of the product/service.
(2) Cost, consistent with the product’s features and with
the resources available to the company; (this means the
whole procurement cost, including the costs of order-
ing, transport, storage and any depreciation, not just
the conventionally adopted ‘unit price’ indicator).
(3) Punctuality of deliveries, in relation to agreed delivery
dates.
(4) Efficacy of corrective action.
(5) Availability and customer support.
(6) Programming of deliveries.
Of course, the properties that are considered essential to
a product or service purchased outside the company will
vary case by case; sometimes, for instance, the after-sales
service may be of little interest, because this is often
governed by separate contracts, but the above list none-
theless contains the salient attributes sought in the majority
of purchases.
4.2. Identifying the principal supplier assessment criteria
(‘‘HOWs’’)
In a comparative session, our group of three experts was
presented with various criteria that had emerged from a
careful review of the supply management literature. This
analysis identified seven criteria crucial to supplier assess-
ment in our specific case.
The following criteria (‘‘HOWs’’) were considered:
(1) EF ¼ experience of the sector;
(2) IN ¼ capacity for innovation to follow up the custo-
mer’s evolution in terms of changes in its strategy and
market;
(3) SQ ¼ quality system certification;
(4) FL ¼ flexibility of response to the customer’s requests;
(5) FS ¼ financial stability;
(6) RR ¼ ability to manage orders on-line (EDI-system);
(7) PG ¼ geographical position.
ensuring long-term business relations with the supplier in
question.
4.3. Weighting the ‘‘WHATs’’
Each of the three decision-makers established the level of
importance (or weight) of each ‘‘what’’ by means of a
linguistic variable. Five different levels of importance were
used in this study, i.e. very low, low, medium, high and
very high, subsequently indicated as VL, L, M, H, VH.
The outcome of this stage is shown in Table 1
The linguistic variables were translated into fuzzy
numbers by defining appropriate fitness functions. Trian-
gular fuzzy numbers were used, characterized by the
following fitness functions for each linguistic variable
(Fig. 2):
VL ! ð0; 1; 2Þ; L ! ð2; 3; 4Þ; M
! ð4; 5; 6Þ; H ! ð6; 7; 8Þ; VH ! ð8; 9; 0Þ.
In this paper the weights assigned by the decision-makers
were aggregated using the average operator, as described
by the following equation:
WEIGHTS WHAT ¼ fwi ; where i ¼ 1; . . . ; kg,
1
wi ¼  ðwi1  wi2      win Þ,
n
where k is the number of ‘‘WHATs’’ and n the number of
decision-makers (k ¼ 6 and n ¼ 3 in our case).
Each element on the WEIGHTSWHAT vector is a
triangular fuzzy number defined by the triplet wi ¼
ðwia ; wib ; wig Þ. The weights obtained by aggregating the
opinions expressed by each decision maker are shown in
the matrix B of Fig. 3.
4.4. Determining the ‘‘HOW’’–’’WHAT’’ correlation scores
and weighting the ‘‘HOWs’’
Each decision-maker was asked to express an opinion,
using one of the five linguistic variables, on the impact of
each ‘‘HOW’’ on each ‘‘WHAT’’. The opinions expressed
by the three decision-makers are shown in Table 2.
Here again, triangular fuzzy numbers were used to
quantify the linguistic variables and, as in the previous

In general terms, we can conclude from this selection of

supplier assessment criteria that customers are showing a Table 1
growing interest in the supplier’s capacity for improvement
in its organization and production, with the promise of Whats DM1 DM2 DM3
more reliable and less costly products. The company’s Conformity VH VH H
purchasing managers have indicated technological cap- Cost M L M
ability and financial considerations as priority issues. The Punctuality H M M
increasingly widespread tendency of customers to demand Efficacy M M L
Programming L VL L
detailed financial information on potential suppliers is
Availability M L L
symptomatic of how critical this factor has become in
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M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27 21

Fig. 3. The completed fuzzy-HOQ.

Table 2

WHATs HOWs

EF IN SQ FL FS RR PG

DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3

Conformity VH H H VH VH VH L VL VL M L L L VL VL H H H L L L
Cost M M L H H M VH VH VH L L L M M M L L VL M M H
Punctuality H M H M M M L L L H VH VH L L L VH VH VH H H H
Efficacy H H VH VH VH VH M L L H VH VH L L L M VL H L VL VL
Programming H H H H H M L L L M M M L VL VL H H H VL VL VL
Availability H M H VH VH H VL L L H VH VH M M M H H VH H H VH

case, the fuzzy numbers obtained for each decision-maker where the usual conventions are assumed for k and m. Each
were aggregated by means of the following equation: Wj on the WEIGHTSHOW vector represents the weight of
each supplier attribute. The Wj are, once again, triangular
RATING ¼ frij ; where i ¼ 1; . . . ; k and j ¼ 1; . . . ; mg,
fuzzy numbers defined by means of the triplets W j ¼ ðW ja ;
1 W jb ; W jg Þ.
rij ¼  ðrij1  rij2      rijn Þ
n The fuzzy values for the weights of the ‘‘HOWs’’ are
where k ¼ number of the ‘‘WHATs’’, m ¼ number of the shown in the matrix F of Fig. 3.
‘‘HOWs’’ and n ¼ number of the decision-makers (in our
case, k ¼ 6, m ¼ 7 and n ¼ 3). This time, the RATING is 4.5. Developing the matrix of correlations between the
the matrix of the ‘‘how’’–‘‘what’’ correlation scores, whose ‘‘HOWs’’
rij elements represent an aggregate correlation score
between the ith ‘‘what’’ and the jth ‘‘how’’. Here again, The correlations between the supplier assessment criteria
the rij elements are triangular fuzzy numbers defined by the (‘‘HOWs’’) are contained in the ‘‘roof’’ of the HOQ (matrix
triplets rij ¼ ðrija ; rijb ; rijg Þ. E of Fig. 3). This step in the construction of the HOQ
We can now complete the HOQ, calculating the weights enables the team members to keep track of pairs of
of the ‘‘HOWs’’, averaging the aggregate weighted rij ‘‘HOWs’’ needing parallel improvements and/or compris-
correlation scores with the aggregate weights of the ing ‘‘HOWs’’ in potentially difficult relationships that
‘‘WHATs’’ wi, according to the equation: consequently imply measures that are inconsistent with
each other. This matrix contains positive and negative
WEIGHT SHOW ¼ fW j ; where j ¼ 1; . . . ; mg, correlations between pairs of ‘‘HOWs’’ using the same
1
 symbols as Hines et al. (1998). The completed fuzzy-HOQ
W j ¼  ðrj1  w1 Þ      ðrjk  wk Þ
k is illustrated below (Fig. 3).
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22 M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27

4.6. Determining the impact of each potential supplier on the where the previously adopted conventions apply for p
attributes considered and m.
The FSI vector contains the FSIh indexes for each
Having completed the weighting of each attribute, all we supplier, which are triangular fuzzy numbers as usual,
have to do is assess each supplier vis-à-vis the attribute in defined by the triplets FSI h ¼ ðFSI ha ; FSI hb ; FSI hg Þ, the
question and combine said assessments with the weight of components of which can be calculated as follows:
each attribute in order to establish a final ranking. Table 3
1X m
shows each decision-maker’s opinions on the various FSI ha ¼ SRhja  W ja ;
suppliers in relation to each attribute. m j¼1
In the same way as before, the linguistic variables were 1X m
quantified by means of triangular fuzzy numbers, then the FSI hb ¼ SRhjb  W jb ;
m j¼1
three decision-makers’ assessments were aggregated ac-
cording to the following equation: 1X m
FSI hg ¼ SRhjg  W jg .
SUPPLIER RATING m j¼1
¼ fSRhj ; where h ¼ 1; . . . ; p; j ¼ 1; . . . ; mg, For the case in point, the FSIh indexes are given in
1 Table 4:
SRhj ¼  ðsrhj1      srhjn Þ,
n Using the fuzzy ranking principle, these fuzzy ratings
where m is the number of attributes (‘‘HOWs’’), p the produce the following ranking order for the suppliers:
number of suppliers, n the number of decision-makers, and Sup 5Sup 2Sup 8Sup 7Sup 3Sup 4Sup 6{Sup 1,
srhjn is the (fuzzy) evaluation expressed by the nth decision- Sup 9}{Sup 9, Sup 10}.
maker for the hth supplier as regards the jth attribute. The Where  means ‘‘better than’’ and where {Sup 1, Sup 9}
SUPPLIER RATING matrix will contain the aggregate means that Sup 9 and Sup 1 are not so easy to be
assessments SRhj of the hth supplier for the jth attribute; compared, so do {Sup 9, Sup 10}.
the elements in this matrix are also triangular fuzzy Applied to a triangular fuzzy number FN ¼ ðFN a ; FN b ;
numbers identified by the triplets SRhj ¼ ðSRhja ; SRhjb ; FN g Þ, the Facchinetti et al. (1998) approach produces a
SRhjg Þ. score identified by the value:
FN a þ 2  FN b þ FN g
4.7. Supplier ranking .
4
The final scores (Table 5) and consequent ranking are
The last step in the procedure involves calculating the
given below:
FSI for each supplier; this index expresses the degree to
which each supplier satisfies a given requirement.
The FSIh index is a triangular fuzzy number obtained 4.7.1. Comparison with crisp number
from the previously calculated aggregate scores, multiplied Using objective, definite and precise numbers to repre-
by the weights for each assessment criterion. The equation sent linguistic assessments are, although widely adopted, is
is as follows: not very reasonable. For example, rather than using
symmetrical triangular fuzzy numbers to represent the five
FSI ¼ fFSIh; where h ¼ 1; . . . ; pg, different levels of importance, we may assign numbers 1, 3,
1 5, 7 and 9 to the linguistic assessments: very low, low,
FSI h ¼  ½ðSRh1  W 1 Þ      ðSRhm  W m Þ,
m medium, high and very high.

Table 3

SUPPLIERS HOWs

EF IN SQ FL FS RR PG

DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3 DM1 DM2 DM3

Sup 1 M L M L M L M L M M M H M M M VL L L VL M L
Sup 2 H H H H M M M M H VH VH H VH VH VH VL L VL L L M
Sup 3 L M VL VH H VH VH VH H L L L L L L VL L L VL L VL
Sup 4 M M L H H H VL VL L VL VL L H H H VL VL VL VH H H
Sup 5 VH VH VH VH VH VH VL VL VL H H H M M L L L M VL VL M
Sup 6 H VH VH L VL L M M L M M M H H VH VL VL VL VL VL L
Sup 7 VL L VL M M M VH VH VH H VH VH L L L M M H L M L
Sup 8 L L H M H M H H H VL VL L H H H VH VH VH VL VL L
Sup 9 M M M H H H M M L L H L VL VL VL VL VL L VL VL L
Sup 10 H H H VL L VL M M H L L VL VH VH H VL VL M VL VL M
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M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27 23

Table 4 attribute: SRhj ¼ 1=nðsrhj1 þ    þ srhjn Þ, srhjn is the evalua-

tion expressed by the nth decision-maker for the hth
FSI
supplier as regards the jth attribute.
a b g From these crisp technical ratings, the suppliers can be
ranked in the following order:
Sup 1 48.31 101.45 182.97
Sup 5Sup 2Sup 8Sup 7Sup 3Sup 4Sup 6Sup
Sup 2 75.99 145.27 246.55
Sup 3 54.39 109.98 194.33 1Sup 9Sup 10.
Sup 4 53.05 108.46 192.82
Sup 5 82.49 149.74 247.66
Sup 6 50.70 105.90 190.06 5. Discussion
Sup 7 66.80 130.46 224.79
Sup 8 67.64 131.17 225.36 The conceptual approach proposed in this paper is based
Sup 9 49.86 100.90 179.37
on the distinction between the attributes of the product/
Sup 10 44.91 98.10 180.06
service being purchased from outside the company and the
intrinsic attributes of the suppliers. It becomes evident, in
fact, that the company’s ultimate aim is to have access to
Table 5 supplies that ensure a certain quality standard, in terms of
the characteristics of the purchased products or services,
Alternative Score Ranking and as regards efficient deliveries. It is equally clear,
however, that achieving these objectives depends largely on
Sup 1 108.54 8
Sup 2 153.27 2 the characteristics of the supplier himself. It becomes
Sup 3 117.17 5 impossible, or at least conceptually unwise, to attempt to
Sup 4 115.70 6 achieve such objectives by restricting the assessment to
Sup 5 157.41 1 only one of these two categories of attributes. Constructing
Sup 6 113.14 7
Sup 7 138.13 4
an HOQ enables these two groups of attributes to be
Sup 8 138.83 3 correlated so that we can pinpoint how well each supplier
Sup 9 107.76 9 characteristic succeeds in meeting the requirements estab-
Sup 10 105.29 10 lished for the product being purchased outside the
company; having done so, we can go on to draw up a
supplier ranking list. Mandal and Deshmukh (1994)
suggested the definition of dependent criteria and indepen-
Using this scale for measuring the relative importance of dent criteria. In their view the dependent criteria (those
WHATs, for measuring the relationship between each which in this work are called internal variables) are
WHAT and each HOW and for measuring the relationship important to consider in the final choice-phase while the
between each HOW and each SUPPLIER, we can independent criteria (external variables) are important to
determine the suppliers ranking. consider for screening acceptable suppliers (prior to the
When crisp numbers are used, the weights of WHATs final choice).
(wi), the weights of HOWs (Wj) and the relative importance The proposed method tries to aggregate the decision-
of suppliers (th) are computed by makers opinions in a different way satisfying the two
phases of supplier selection (Criteria 1–4 for the evaluation
WEIGHTSWHAT ¼ fwi ; where i ¼ 1; . . . ; kg, of the decision models, De Boer, 2003). The decision-
1 makers are called to identify, through the HOQ matrix,
wi ¼ ðwi1 þ wi2 þ    þ win Þ which of the suppliers’ attributes (external variables:
n
experience of the sector, quality system certification, ability
where k is the number of ‘‘WHATs’’ and n the number of
to manage orders on-line, financial stability, etc.) have the
decision-makers.
greatest impact on the achievement of its established
WEIGHTSHOW ¼ fW j ; where j ¼ 1; . . . ; mg, objectives (internal variables: product conformity, cost,
1
 punctuality of delivery, etc.).
W j ¼ ðrj1 w1 Þ þ þðrjk wk Þ , In this way this method should be used with three aims:
k
where m is the number of ‘‘HOWs’’ and rji elements
represent an aggregate correlation score between the ith  as a tool for the identification of the best criteria;
‘‘WHAT’’ and the jth ‘‘HOW’’.  to carry out what De Boer et al. (2001) delineated as a
pre-qualification of suitable suppliers, or rather as the
1 process of reducing the set of all suppliers of all semi-
th ¼ ½ðSRh1  W 1 Þ þ    þ ðSRhm  W m Þ,
m processed parts and raw materials, to a smaller set of
where h ¼ 1; . . . p (p is the number of suppliers) and SRhj is acceptable suppliers;
the aggregate assessments of the hth supplier for the jth  as a decision model for the final-choice phase.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
24 M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27

Moreover, the construction of the roof of the HOQ
(matrix E), studying the correlations between pairs of
‘‘how’’, helped the decision-makers to define the judgments
about the suppliers (expressed in Table 3), and so to
interpret the final ranking.
The use of fuzzy logic enables the decision-makers to
eliminate, or at least contain the problems stemming from
the subjective and ambiguous nature of their information,
so that they can formally treat (and thus implement in
calculation systems) even those variables that conventional
techniques cannot manage without sacrificing the expres-
sive power typical of verbal language, that still cannot be
reproduced by artificial intelligence. Whenever it is
impossible to establish clearly distinct constraints due to
the variables that define the problem, decision-makers
interpret their values on the strength of their experience
and understanding of the problem, then draw appropriate
decisions.
Although the crisp and fuzzy final importance ratings for
the 10 suppliers may not result in the same ranking order
due to possible incomparability between the fuzzy ratings
of Sup 1 and Sup 9, and of Sup 9 and Sup 10, it is quite
clear that the two sets of ratings show an identical trend.
Both sets of ratings indicate that Sup 5 is the most
important supplier, followed by Sup 2 and then by Sup 8
and Sup 7, and that Sup 10 is the least important supplier.
These final importance ratings of the suppliers, expressed
as both crisp numbers and triangular fuzzy numbers, are
shown in the second column of Table 6. In order to be
comparable, according to Teng and Tzeng (1996) and
Chan et al. (1999), the crisp and fuzzy final importance
ratings are both normalized to have maximum ratings of
unity, which are also shown in Table 6. More clearly, the
normalized ratings are obtained for the crisp case by
dividing all the ratings by their maximum, 149.74, and for
the fuzzy case by dividing all the triangular fuzzy numbers
by the maximum of their upper limits, 247.66. From these
scaled ratings we can see that, although the crisp and fuzzy
ratings result in the same ranking order, crisp ratings are
very close to the upper limits of the corresponding fuzzy
ratings and quite far from the lower limits. This shows that
fuzzy ratings are more representative of the variations in
the suppliers’ importance, which would make the industry
more flexible to capture and satisfy its needs for the clutch
plate, thus giving a more unbiased evaluation of the
suppliers performance (Criterion 11 for the evaluation of
the decision models, de Boer, 2003).
6. Conclusions
The QFD multi-attribute decisional method, designed to
support the development of products conforming to the
customer’s needs and requirements, was applied to the
problem of clutch plate supplier selection for an industry
that manufactures complete clutch couplings. In this
general picture, the QFD—and the HOQ in particular—
have demonstrated their potential as key tools for
reconciling conventional needs (which remain important)
with assessment criteria of the suppliers’ attributes. The
fuzzy logic proved to be useful because the main variables
neither quantitatively defined nor attributable to specific
sets, were expressed as linguistic variables instead and
because the general ‘‘if–then–else’’ rules were fundamental
tools for linking the input linguistic variables with the
system’s outputs. The proposed method is therefore used in
the selection of semi-processed part suppliers of strategic
importance to the company.
For the business of the company, the benefits associated
with having a formal system in place to identify and
continually measure supplier performance are various.
First of all, this method offers a tangible means by which to
evaluate suppliers. In the light of the heterogeneous
capabilities of suppliers, the decision-makers can objec-
tively assess each supplier interface and detect when
corrective action may be necessary. Secondly, the informa-
tion can be used to derive baseline levels of acceptable

Table 6
Crisp and fuzzy final importance ratings of the 10 suppliers

Supplier importance ratings Normalized supplier importance ratings

Crisp (th) FSI Crisp FSI

a b g a b g

Sup 1 101.45 48.31 101.45 182.97 0.68 0.19 0.41 0.74

Sup 2 145.27 75.99 145.27 246.55 0.97 0.31 0.59 0.99
Sup 3 109.98 54.39 109.98 194.33 0.73 0.22 0.45 0.78
Sup 4 108.46 53.05 108.46 192.82 0.72 0.21 0.44 0.78
Sup 5 149.74 82.49 149.74 247.66 1.00 0.33 0.61 1.00
Sup 6 105.90 50.70 105.90 190.06 0.71 0.21 0.43 0.77
Sup 7 130.46 66.80 130.46 224.79 0.87 0.27 0.53 0.91
Sup 8 131.17 67.64 131.17 225.36 0.88 0.28 0.53 0.91
Sup 9 100.90 49.86 100.90 179.37 0.67 0.21 0.41 0.73
Sup 10 98.10 44.91 98.10 180.06 0.66 0.18 0.40 0.73
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Bevilacqua et al. / Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 12 (2006) 14–27
supplier operational performance. Thirdly, the information
captured can be used to identify ‘‘preferred’’ suppliers.
Given that ‘‘preferred suppliers’’ have graduated to that
status through their exemplary efforts, more future
business can be allocated to them. The implication is that
less time and lower costs will be required to screen and
develop new exchange partners. Fourthly, tracking these
metrics can provide the information necessary to prune
under-performing vendors from the supplier base. Given
that the firm is trying to reduce the breadth of its supplier
portfolio in an attempt to increase quality and reduce costs,
operational metrics provide the means to accomplish that
end (Criterion 6 for the evaluation of the decision models,
De Boer, 2003).
Some extensions and improvement could be accom-
plished starting from this methodology. This ordering
method could be extended to multi-purpose evaluation, e.g.
employee selection, appraising performance of individuals
or departments, etc. In the near future this method could
be applied effectively to various issues such as policy-
making, business strategies and performance assessment
and not only to supplier selection.
An improvement could be the introduction of variables
that take into consideration the inventory management of
the items purchased. As De Boer et al. (2001) observed, in
existing literature only a few models incorporate the
decision to schedule orders over time with the vendor
selection decision, although it can be argued that ordering
policy and supplier choice influence one another.
Some values such as the minimum purchasable quantity
and the lot sizing policies of the suppliers can significantly
influence the way of managing the purchased goods and
the indirect costs to the buyer.
Appendix A
The three operations used in the present work on
triangular fuzzy numbers are:
(1) Let A~ 1 ¼ ðc1 ; a1 ; d 1 Þ and A~ 2 ¼ ðc2 ; a2 ; d 2 Þ be 2 triangular
fuzzy numbers: the addition A~ 1  A~ 2 ¼ ðc1 þ c2 ; a1 þ
a2 ; d 1 þ d 2 Þ; where c1 , a1 , d 1 and c2 , a2 , d 2 are real
numbers.
(2) The multiplication of A~ 1 and A~ 2 is: A~ 1  A~ 2 ¼ ðc; a; dÞ,
where: T ¼fc1 c2 ; c1 d 2 ; d 1 c2 ; d 1 d 2 g, c ¼ min T, a¼a1  a2 ,
d ¼ max T.
(3) If c1 , a1 , d 1 and c2 , a2 , d 2 are all positive real numbers,
then A~ 1  A~ 2 ¼ ðc1 c2 ; a1 a2 ; d 1 d 2 Þ. Assuming that A~ i ¼
ðci ; ai ; d i Þ and B~ i ¼ ðqi ; oi ; ri Þ, where ci, ai, di and qi, oi, ri
are all positive real numbers, where i ¼ 1; . . . ; n,
then:
A~ 1  B~ 1  A~ 2  B~ 2      A~ n  B~ n
! Purchasing and Supply Management 9, 109–118.
X n X
n X
n
¼ c i qi ; a i oi ; d i ri .
i¼1 i¼1 i¼1
25
Appendix B
A fuzzy logical value x can be see as a pair (Px, Nx). The
component Px is the possibility that the value is true. The
component Nx is the necessity of that. Fuzzy logic can be
applied to combining evidences, which might be fuzzy and
contradictory. Let two logical values x and y were obtained
from two evidences p and q. So if x and y both describe
some event s then x ¼ ðPsjp ; N sjp Þ, y ¼ ðPsjq ; N sjq Þ. There are
two ways to combine the evidences p and T q. A pessimistic
one is to consider how s depends on p q. An optimistic
S
combination is p q. The pessimistic combination of x and
y is x  y ¼ ðPsjp T q ; N sjp T q Þ. It can be shown that
P T pminðPsjp ; Psjq Þ and N T XmaxðN sjp ; N sjq Þ. The
sjp q sjp q
optimistic combination of x and y is x þ y ¼ ðPsjp S q ;
N S Þ ¼ ðmaxðPsjp ; Psjq Þ; minðN sjp ; N sjq ÞÞ. The combina-
sjp q
tions + and * are sometimes called consensus and
gullibility.
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Further reading
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and Systems 15, 21–31.
Liou, T.S., Wang, M.J.J., 1992. Ranking fuzzy numbers with integral
values. Fuzzy Sets and Systems 49, 247–255.