Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288

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Expert Systems With Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

A fuzzy-based decision aid method for product deletion of fast moving

consumer goods
Pourya Pourhejazy a, Joseph Sarkis b, Qinghua Zhu a,∗
a
Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 1954 Huashan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai 200030, China
b
Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2289, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Technological and market cycles pressure organizations to introduce new products. To make room for
Received 3 August 2018 the new products, product deletion (PD) decisions are inevitable. PD implementation, however, is beyond
Revised 4 October 2018
the reactive elimination of mature or low-profit products. As a competitive and proactive managerial
Accepted 1 November 2018
tool, PD requires incorporation of supply chain financial and non-financial attributes to not only benefit
Available online 2 November 2018
organizations, but also maintain important partnerships. To successfully apply strategic PD, consideration
Keywords: of a broader set of decision factors is necessary. To update the traditional view, this paper introduces
Product deletion supply chain and competitive factors to product deletion decision-making (PDDM). Given the complex
Supply chain multi-criteria problem, including both qualitative and quantitative factors and the relative uncertainties
Fast-moving consumer goods and interaction between the factors, a Nested-Fuzzy Inference System with Interactions (NFISI) model as
Multi-criteria decision-making part of a multi-stage, multi-method expert system is introduced to aid the decision-making process. The
Fuzzy inference system
model is verified using a practical case in a major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company. The
priority of alternative products for deletion is obtained through the application of the developed model
considering the newly introduced factors. The results provide initial, albeit idiosyncratic, insights with
a discussion of practical implications. It is demonstrated that considering supply chain factors makes a
difference in PDDM outcomes. A brief overview of research opportunities is finally presented to guide
researchers in contributing to this under-studied subject.
© 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction Consumer goods industries are a venue where the PD deci-

Markets are increasingly dynamic as product and technologi-
cal life cycles become shorter (Lin, Chiu, & Chu, 2006). In this
environment, strategic product deletion (PD) can be as critical
to organizational competitiveness as new product introduction
(Bai, Shah, Zhu, & Sarkis, 2017). A paradigm shift from prolifer-
ation to rationalization of products has put more emphasis on
PD (Argouslidis, Baltas, & Mavrommatis, 2014). Market dynam-
ics and shortened product life cycles have caused greater occur-
rence of PD (Wagner, Abdelkafi, & Blecker, 2017). Diverse reasons
exist for PD decisions. Product underperformance, poor product
strategic-fit, or products damaging organizational reputation are
some general examples for product discontinuation in different
sectors (Avlonitis, Hart, & Tzokas, 20 0 0).
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: pourya@sjtu.edu.cn (P. Pourhejazy), jsarkis@wpi.edu (J. Sarkis),
qhzhu@sjtu.edu.cn (Q. Zhu).
sion has been applied the most (Argouslidis, Baltas, & Mavromma-
tis, 2015). Given low brand loyalty in fast-moving consumer goods
(FMCG) (Wu, Liu, & Yang, 2018), and high consumer expectation
for service quality and new products in this sector (Mbhele, 2016),
pressure for product availability and innovation in FMCG is high
(Diehl & Spinler, 2013). Therefore, the decision on which products
should be deleted is even more imperative in FMCG markets. FMCG
companies routinely trim their product lines to maintain high over-
all performance and competitiveness (Chong, Ho, & Tang, 2004).
The Procter & Gamble (P&G) Corporation is a prime example of
PD practices, where the company continuously tweaks its product
portfolio by deleting low-profit products (Ng, 2014).
Implementation of strategic PD practices, beyond the simple
removal of obsolete or mature products is inevitable (Zhu &
Shah, 2018). Strategic PD can be used as a "competitive weapon" in
critical market situations (Wan, Wang, & Fung, 2005). However, PD
can cause failure if it is not applied cautiously (Shah, 2017a, 2017b).
For example, a strategic product may be discontinued merely due
to its undesirable sales volume, putting important partnerships at
risk (Van Hoek & Pegels, 2006). On the other hand, a burdensome

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2018.11.001
0957-4174/© 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288
product, which is adversely influencing the company’s overall per-
formance, may not be discontinued on account of its high marginal
profit. Although PD has traditionally occurred as a routine and re-
active decision, the proactive strategic perspective towards it is a
new phenomenon (Muir & Reynolds, 2011).
The extant literature introduced financial and market consid-
erations for product deletion decision-making (PDDM) (Avlonitis,
1984, 1993; Mitchell, Taylor, & Tanyel, 1998). Given the evolving
importance of PD decisions, however, there is a need for a strategic
outlook on this managerial practice. This situation requires consid-
eration of a broader range of operational and competitive factors
relating to PD. Additionally, the growing strategic importance of
supply chains in organizational competitiveness requires that com-
panies consider PD’s impact on the supply chain’s overall perfor-
mance.
Due to shortened product life cycles and the need for rapid
product development, the significance of PD and new product in-
troduction, together known as product rollover, becomes more ap-
parent (Katana, Eriksson, Hilletofth, & Eriksson, 2017). However,
research on PD, unlike other product management decision ar-
eas, is limited (Argouslidis et al., 2015; Bai et al., 2017; Shah,
Zhu, & Sarkis, 2017). Despite the interdependence among PD de-
cisions and supply chain operations, few studies cover both (Zhu &
Shah, 2018); the organizational aspects of PD decisions have been
neglected (Argouslidis et al., 2015). No studies have jointly exam-
ined the effect of competitive forces and operational aspects on
PDDM. Moreover, the vast majority of PD studies are conceptual
in nature (Muir & Reynolds, 2011) and decision-making tools need
further development and to be tested in real-world cases.
After selection of initial candidates for deletion, the final deci-
sion would benefit from a systemic ranking scheme. Given these
broad considerations for strategic PD, expert systems can support
a systemic perspective, providing decision-makers with dependable
means for identifying the effective solutions to complex problems
(Liao, 2005). Such a decision aid method is particularly essential in
retail FMCG, because of the large number of stock keeping units
(SKUs) to be managed (Joseph, Sundarakani, Hosie, & Nagarajan,
2010), and the fact that PD requiring rapid audits and decision
schemes occurs on a regular basis. To overcome the imprecision
and uncertainty of this evaluation, applications of fuzzy approaches
are needed; vagueness has been neglected in PDDM. Moreover, for
practical decision-making problems, many factors are interactive,
and existing fuzzy-based modeling aggregators do not take inter-
actions into account (Amindoust, Ahmed, Saghafinia, & Bahreinine-
jad, 2012; Ramkumar, 2016; Ramkumar, Schoenherr, & Jenamani,
2016).
Given the above-mentioned concerns, this paper aims to make
two key contributions to the under-researched area of PDDM. We
first aim to put forward a comprehensive set of criteria by in-
troducing supply chain factors and competitive forces. Secondly, a
nested-fuzzy inference system with interactions (NFISI) model as
part of a multi-stage, multi-method approach is then developed to
aid the decision-making process. The other methods, including the
best-worst method and a multi-attribute method, “Measuring At-
tractiveness by a Categorical Based Evaluation Technique” (MAC-
BETH), are integrated to allow for the application of NFISI. A prac-
tical application from one of the world’s top multinational compa-
nies in FMCG is finally used as an illustrative case.
The remainder of the article begins with identifying factors for
PD. The methodological tools are then introduced in Section Three.
The illustrative case study, accompanied by a numerical analysis
and a discussion on managerial implications, is subsequently pro-
vided to show the applicability and limitations of the proposed
model. The paper concludes with some insights for future research
to help address some of the limitations and challenges associated
with PD and supply chain management.
273
2. Literature review
A review of the literature is conducted using the following key-
words: "product deletion" OR "product elimination" OR "product
discontinuation" in the Web of Science core database. Through a
search of the aforementioned terms in the title, abstract, and key-
words in the database, a total of 83 papers were initially identi-
fied. After reading the title and abstract of the resulting papers,
only 18 journal and conference papers were perceived as relevant,
with the rest belonging to unrelated fields such as bioengineering
and chemistry. A database was formed by recording the titles, au-
thors, and journals, as well as the year of each publication. In the
next step, the articles were categorized based on the methodol-
ogy. Of the existing literature on PD, the majority (8 papers) are
conceptual; empirical studies and surveys followed, with 4 and 2
papers, respectively. Finally, a list of decision factors was identified
through a more comprehensive review. The identified factors were
later presented to the experts of the case company to ensure full
coverage of the relevant supply chain and the competitive factors.
On this basis, some of the factors were modified, and a new rec-
ommended factor, high variance in the customer’s feedback, was
added to the list. Discussion of the results is now presented in this
background review.
2.1. Background on product deletion
Product elimination, deletion, and discontinuation are used in-
terchangeably in the academic literature to refer to the decision of
stopping manufacture and sale of a specific product, brand, or SKU,
from a company’s portfolio (Avlonitis & Argouslidis, 2012; Shah,
Laverie, & Davis, 2017). PD decisions can take the form of either
rollovers (i.e. phasing out existing products and phasing in new
ones) or complete deletion where there is no replacement for the
deleted product (Argouslidis et al., 2015). It is a multi-functional
managerial practice that can be initiated by a manufacturer, re-
tailer, or wholesaler. Marketing, accounting, and finance functions
are typically more actively involved in the decision process at an
organizational level (Muir & Reynolds, 2011).
The PD process consists of a sequence of steps beginning with
the identification of candidates for deletion, followed by an anal-
ysis on possibilities of revitalization, and finally the evaluation of
candidates for eventual PD decision-making and implementation
(Avlonitis & Argouslidis, 2012). Our study focuses on the final step
of this PD process.
Due to resource limitations, companies with full product lines
consider deleting existing products to free capacity for the launch
of new products (Lin & Shih, 2010). PD is particularly essential to
industries with products characterized by short life cycles and time
to market (Katana et al., 2017). Given the variety of products and
the large assortment size in retail FMCG (Joseph et al., 2010), PD
has been applied frequently in this sector (Argouslidis et al., 2015).
PD, as a reactive managerial practice, has been predominantly
initiated by weak sales performance or poor market share and
profitability (Vyas, 1993). Given today’s market complexities, PD
has necessarily evolved into a proactive and strategic managerial
tool to cope with market dynamics, i.e. rationalizing the product
portfolio (Leiter, 2011) or downsizing the business (Harness & Har-
ness, 2012). When analyzing PD as a strategic decision, there is
a need to thoroughly take into account the multi-faceted opera-
tional factors (Irani, Ghoneim, & Love, 2006; Sarkis & Talluri, 2002).
Beyond traditional financial factors, this study extends to include
supply chain operational and competitive aspects. Table 1 presents
a list of a comprehensive set of PD decision factors and their def-
initions. Each of the major categories is summarized in the next
sub-section.
274 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288

Table 1
Summary of factors associated with product deletion decision.

Category Sym. Factor Definition Supporting References

Traditional C1 Low total profit A sharp drop in the realized sales level (turnover) and unit profit Avlonitis (1993),
Factors compared to the expected level Avlonitis (1984),
Avlonitis and
Argouslidis (2012),
Avlonitis et al. (20 0 0),
Mitchell et al. (1998)
C2 High level of allocated Resource intensive products potentially degrade the supply chain Avlonitis (1993),
supply chain performance Avlonitis (1984),
resources Avlonitis and
Argouslidis (2012),
Avlonitis et al. (20 0 0),
Mitchell et al. (1998),
Wu et al. (2018)
C3 Strategic-fit Inconsistency with the company’s business strategy i.e. cost Avlonitis (1993),
contradiction effectiveness, responsiveness, and differentiation Avlonitis (1984),
Avlonitis and
Argouslidis (2012),
Avlonitis et al. (20 0 0),
Mitchell et al., (1998)
C4 Negative customer Negative customer’s perception towards a product about its quality and Argouslidis et al. (2015),
feedback healthiness is a major reason for reformulation or discontinuation of Mitchell et al. (1998),
the product Wu et al. (2018)
C5 High variance in This factor is important in business-to-business, where business Recommended by the
customer feedback entities receive the same product, but due to different ways of interviewee
processing them (i.e. recipe for the restaurants), the feedback on the
product’s quality can be different
Supply C6 High logistic expenses It comprises the share of the product’s logistics costs comprising Wu et al. (2018)
Chain packaging, transportation, and inventory keeping expenses to the Birhanu et al. (2017),
Factors total corresponding values in the company’s supply chain Argouslidis et al. (2015)
C7 Logistic resources In case of a recent launch of a new product or a surge in demand for Zhu and Shah (2018)
reallocation another product, the released logistic resources can be reallocated
opportunities after a possible deletion
C8 Average time in the Lengthy inventory days of supply, particularly in sourcing and stocking Argouslidis et al. (2015),
supply chain processes and long return-on-capital Kocaoğlu et al. (2013)
Dollet and Díaz (2011)
C9 Low flexibility in Product assortment complexity may cause inflexibility in logistic Harness and Harness (2012)
company logistics activities and weaken the timeliness of supply
operations
C10 High percentage of Outsourcing can hinder deletion due to contractual terms (possibilities Naim et al. (2006)
insourced contents of early termination). Moreover, more resources will be released in
case of deleting a product with a high percentage of insourced
activities
C11 Low effectiveness of Sourcing effectiveness goes beyond the financial aspects and includes Fernie and Sparks (2014)
sourcing intangible dimensions like supplier relations and value procurement,
that reflects the performance of the suppliers in terms of quality and
service level
Competitive C12 Existing competitor When the product’s market is shrinking and there is no more room for Porter (2008), Wu et al. (2018)
Forces rivalry competition on price and quality
C13 New market entrant Newcomers to an industry change the balance between supply and Porter (2008)
potential demand. This can cause further shrinkage of profit margin and
increase rivalry
C14 Customer bargaining High price-sensitivity of FMCGs customers and availability of wide Nielson (1998), Porter (2008)
power range of options make it easy to switch to another product
C15 Substitute product Substitute product can be an alternative that belongs to other product Homburg et al. (2010),
availability categories/markets but offers the similar functionality Porter (2008)

2.2. Factors for product deletion
2.2.1. Traditional factors
Early works cited financial, resource-based, and strategic as-
pects influencing the PD decision (Avlonitis, 1993; Avlonitis, 1984;
Avlonitis & Argouslidis, 2012). Total profit (C1 ) is considered to rep-
resent the sales volume and unit profit of the product. The work-
ing capital associated with the manufacture of a product is an-
other major financial aspect. This factor is significantly affected by
the supply chain operational aspects, particularly inventory perfor-
mance (i.e. day sales of inventory), as well as the difference be-
tween trade receivables/payables (Brandenburg & Seuring, 2011).
The former component is discussed among the supply chain op-
erational factors, while the latter is not included due to the con-
siderably low contribution of a single product in FMCG (Wu et al.,
2018).
Having intensively allocated resources in the production process
is another major aspect that impacts the PD decision. Considering
the critical role of logistics in FMCG (Wu et al., 2018), the level of
allocated supply chain resources (C2) is considered to represent the
resource-based factors within an updated view, and in the con-
text of FMCG. Weak products occupy the company’s valuable re-
sources and increase the complexity of the operational processes,
and discontinuing them helps to improve organizational and sup-
ply chain slacks, and in some cases overall profitability (Bayus &
Putsis, 1999). The increase in availability of time and capital, com-
prising the human and non-human resources, are the major oppor-
tunities of PD relating to this group of factors.
 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288
From the strategic perspective, the product’s effect on the cor-
porate image and the company’s competitive modes are the other
key considerations in PD. The PD decision has a significant impact
on the corporate image (Argouslidis et al., 2015). This effect can
be positive if PD is strategically applied to proactively avoid the
adverse effects of a product on the company’s reputation, i.e. non-
sustainable supply chain operations pertaining to the product. On
the other hand, PD may not be favorable if it is putting important
partnerships at risk or causing customer dissatisfaction due to pop-
ularity of the product. Besides, the more an inconsistent a prod-
uct is with the company’s strategies, the more likely the decision
for discontinuation. This factor is therefore referred to as strategic-
fit contradiction (C3 ), which is a general, traditional factor and in-
cludes the full-line strategy.
Besides the aforementioned factors from the early studies in
the field, the product’s performance is of high significance in PD
(Mitchell et al., 1998). Given the high consumer expectation for
quality in FMCG (Mbhele, 2016), perceived product effectiveness
from the viewpoints of customers (Berry, Burton, & Howlett, 2017;
Brown & Dacin, 1997) is imperative in a PD context. Therefore, neg-
ative customer feedback (C4 ) on the product can be a major reason
for the modification or discontinuation of a product. High variance
in customer feedback (C5 ) on product quality is the other relevant
factor missing in the literature, and plays a significant role, partic-
ularly in business-to-business sector of FMCG. This factor demon-
strates the need for broadening a company’s product portfolio; if
this need cannot be met, PD should be applied to avoid adverse
effects on the company’s image.
Owing to the fact that the contribution of a single product in
FMCG is considerably low (Wu et al., 2018), it is imperative to
view individual products as members of a larger group. The fol-
lowing sub-sections, including supply chain operational factors and
broader dimensions of competitive forces, are elaborated upon to
incorporate this viewpoint into PDDM.
2.2.2. Supply chain operational factors
The greater variety and larger quantity of products that a sup-
ply chain accommodates may lead to degradation of operational
performance, due to resource and capacity constraints. Product
and supply chain planning should be completed simultaneously
(Gokhana, Needy, & Normanc, 2015). Product modification, dele-
tion, and new product introduction may have potential to improve
overall system performance (Garbi & Loureiro, 2014). To success-
fully apply these product management practices, their potential
effects should be properly managed throughout the supply chain
(Katana et al., 2017). Therefore, PDDM should take into considera-
tion the company’s supply chain processes.
To analyze the supply chain decision factors in a PD context,
the logistics elements of facilities, inventory, and transportation,
as well as sourcing (Chopra, 2007), are considered with respect
to cost, quality, time (delivery), and flexibility dimensions, as sug-
gested by De Toni and Tonchia (2001) and Sansone, Hilletofth, and
Eriksson (2017). These dimensions are critical to both supply chain
and internal managers of other departments, all of whom are ex-
pected to be involved in PDDM. Supply chain emphasis and charac-
teristics differ across industries; this implies that factors and their
relative importance may vary. FMCG includes a wide range of SKUs
with short life and fast, daily consumption (Pan & Choi, 2016),
where the supply chain’s role is critical (Wu et al., 2018). A poorly
performing product can be considered for deletion because of
its negative impact on supply chain performance, demonstrated
within the following attributes:
Cost: Given the low profit margins in FMCG (Birhanu, Krish-
nanand, & Rao, 2017), logistics expenses (C6 ) are particularly im-
perative to the FMCG sector (Wu et al., 2018). This factor includes
transportation, facilities, and inventory cost elements (Cooper &
275
Ellram, 1993; Sellitto, Pereira, Borchardt, da Silva, & Viegas, 2015).
PD can potentially create slack capacity in logistics infrastructure,
such as in warehouses and transportation vehicles, which in turn
results in wasted energy and resources (Zhu & Shah, 2018). Logis-
tics resources reallocation opportunities (C7 ) can rectify this concern
and mitigate logistics costs.
Time: Speed is a principal attribute in supply chains of FMCG
(Dewa, Pujawan, & Vanany, 2017). Delivery time required by
business-to-business customers and timeliness of that delivery are
important to supply chain performance. Besides, FMCG compa-
nies strive for short-term return on capital (Dollet & Díaz, 2011).
The days of inventory, or average time in the supply chain (C8 )
(Kocaoğlu, Gülsün, & Tanyaş, 2013) is chosen to represent the time
attribute. This measure focuses on the time a product spends in
the supply chain processes before being sold, and can directly in-
fluence the inventory and transportation costs. Depending on the
type of product, the modification time can be considered a sepa-
rate factor (Sellitto et al., 2015).
Flexibility: FMCG is characterized by high product diversity and
frequent deliveries of small-batches (Colicchia, Creazza, & Dal-
lari, 2017). These features have made the supply chain role more
prominent in FMCG (Wu et al., 2018), so that FMCG is the largest
logistics outsourcer industry (Dev, Shankar, Gunasekaran, & Thakur,
2016). This indicates the increasing importance of the flexibility
of logistics operations (C9 ) in FMCG (Manders, Caniëls, & Ghijsen,
2016), which can be affected by the product portfolio variety and
average order lot size (Sellitto et al., 2015). PD improves flexibility
by having fewer products that require logistics activities (Harness
& Harness, 2012). From a sourcing point of view, maintaining in-
house capability can help to build flexibility (Naim, Potter, Ma-
son, & Bateman, 2006). For this purpose, making excess capac-
ity through PD may be useful, particularly to cope with capac-
ity shortfalls in periods of supply/demand mismatch and improve
supply chain resilience (Pourhejazy, Kwon, Chang, & Park, 2017).
A poorly performing product with a high percentage of insourced
content (C10 ) is, therefore, more likely to be deleted than a product
with a high percentages of outsourced parts/services. This situation
is due to two major reasons: (1) less complexity in governance due
to contracts with suppliers; (2) freeing higher amounts of supply
chain resources through PD.
Quality: The quality attribute contributes the most to FMCG
companies and their decision-making (Diehl & Spinler, 2013).
Given the low brand loyalty in FMCG (Wu et al., 2018), the
product quality attribute is pivotal. Additionally, intense compe-
tition in FMCG obliges the companies to focus on improving
quality, in addition to rigorous cost control strategies (Fernie &
Sparks, 2014). Companies with strategic sourcing emphasize qual-
ity rather than price in the sourcing of parts and raw materials
(Lo & Yeung, 2004). Poor supplier performance within the supply
chain dramatically influences the core competencies of the com-
pany, both in terms of quality and time. From the supply chain per-
spective, therefore, low effectiveness of sourcing (C11 ) can represent
the quality attribute within a PD decision context. Alternatively,
the perceived product effectiveness from the stakeholder viewpoint
(Kirchoff, Koch, & Satinover Nichols, 2011) can contribute to a PD
decision.
2.2.3. Competitive forces
Competitive forces are central to organizational and supply
chain strategy (Porter, 2008). Given that strategic PD can be ap-
plied as a "competitive weapon" (Wan et al., 2005), the inclusion of
competitive forces is important; this is particularly the case in mar-
kets like FMCG, which is characterized by highly intense competi-
tion (Wu et al., 2018). To account for this aspect, existing competi-
tor rivalry (C12 ) is the first considered competitive decision factor.
Knowing a market’s rivalry status and predicting the competitors’
276 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288
next move can significantly affect a PD decision. Besides, deletion
of a product makes a market more attractive for aspiring entrants.
A new entrant’s identifying the potential gap in the market of that
specific product can result in market losses of other products in
the product portfolio. PD may not be favorable when the new mar-
ket entrant potential (C13 ) is high.
Customer bargaining power (C14 ) is the next relevant competi-
tive force. Powerful customers pressuring lower product price or
demanding higher quality in the product can limit product prof-
itability (Porter, 2008). This situation is especially true in the FMCG
business-to-business environment, where companies are usually
responsible for a limited number of customers (Nielson, 1998).
Therefore, customer bargaining power may influence the PD de-
cision. On the supply side, product deletion can result in supplier
dissatisfaction. In this case, a supplier may try to compensate for
revenue loss by charging higher prices or lowering product quality.
The power of suppliers is especially pertinent in industries where
supplier monopolies are prevalent.
Product substitution ease, either through similar products from
other markets or competitors (e.g., aluminum parts can be substi-
tuted with plastic equivalents), is also a competitive concern. Avail-
ability of alternatives within the company’s product portfolio im-
pacts a manager’s PD decision (Homburg, Fürst, & Prigge, 2010).
Given substitute product availability (C15 ) within a company’s port-
folio, lost sales from PD can be compensated; otherwise, the threat
of substitutes in the market may hinder the PD decision. These fac-
tors will play a central role in the decision methodology for PD.
The developed PD decision methodology, utilizing three analyt-
ical techniques including the best-worst method, MACBETH, and
NFISI is introduced in the following section. The most relevant
fuzzy inference system (FIS)-based decision models in the litera-
ture are reviewed in the next sub-section.
3. Methodology
3.1. Fuzzy inference systems and MACBETH
FIS involves a series of computational processes for evaluation
and overall interpretation of linguistic judgments across different
decision factors so that{{input1 , ..., inputN }|rule − base −
→ out put }.
The algorithm consists of a fuzzifier that transforms crisp inputs
to fuzzy counterparts, using membership functions. An inference
engine processes the data inputs using a set of pre-defined set of
conditions – the rule-base to generate fuzzy outputs. The rule-base
is central to the inference system. The inference system provides a
decision algorithm using inference compositional rules (Bashiri &
Hosseininezhad, 2009). The defuzzifier estimates a crisp numerical
value to the fuzzy output. This crisp value will be utilized for the
ultimate decision.
MACBETH provides a systematic approach to obtain the deci-
sion model parameters through pairwise non-numeric judgments
of differences between decision-making scenarios (Bana E Costa, &
Vansnick, 1994). Cardinal, categorical data, is utilized to help ad-
dress some concerns of vagueness and intangibility of data and is
the basis for MACBETH (Craig, Busschbach, & Salomon, 2009). The
technique supports pair-wise comparisons for PD likelihood. This
likelihood is qualitatively evaluated, using linguistic categories.
3.2. Existing FIS models
PDDM incorporates many factors and requires a broader man-
agerial perspective. Much of this environment, due to lack of data,
intangible managerial aspects, and the relative complexity of inter-
factor relationships, can cause imprecision and vagueness. These
are major challenges when developing real-world decision mod-
els using managerial and expert opinion (Gumus, Kucukvar, &
Tatari, 2016). Expert systems, therefore, can be very helpful in ar-
riving at a reliable solution to cope with complexities in prac-
tical decision-making problems (Amirkhan, Didehkhani, Khalili-
Damghani, & Hafezalkotob, 2018). Fuzzy expert systems use fuzzy
set theory (Zadeh, 1965, 1973) to alleviate the aforementioned is-
sues by allowing the expert system to behave less precisely and
more flexibly than conventional approaches (Liao, 2005). Various
tools of this type have been developed, amongst which Mamdani’s
FIS (Mamdani, 1974) can be used as a part of the decision sup-
port system to interpret conditional statements and to guide man-
agerial decision-making. FIS has been widely applied in model-
ing decision-maker preferences in multi-criteria decision-making
(MCDM). It can help to overcome complexity, subjectivity, and un-
certainty, and improve the decision-making process. However, it
has certain limitations, such as ignoring interactions amongst vari-
ables. We address some of these concerns by linking FIS to inter-
action effects, which is supported using MACBETH.
With multiple decision factors contributing to the decision pro-
cess, the factor weight assignment is central to MCDM outcomes
(Ordoobadi, 2009). Practically, making direct judgments on fac-
tor importance becomes less reliable as more factors are intro-
duced. Many methods utilize interactive question approaches be-
tween decision-makers to determine importance weights. These
interactive, human judgment-based approaches can easily result in
weight inconsistencies (Grabisch & Labreuche, 2016). Inconsistency
in evaluation has remained a critical challenge in the MCDM field
(Herman & Koczkodaj, 1996). As an example, FIS models for rank-
ing of alternative suppliers have been applied using decision fac-
tor weights based on weak, moderate, strong, and extreme impor-
tance expressions, obtained through direct and interactive partici-
pant measure (Amindoust et al., 2012). Relying on direct manage-
rial judgment may lead to arbitrary and misleading assignment of
weights; having tools to help make this process more precise is
valuable (Bana E Costa, 2012).
Multiple complementary methods have been integrated with
FIS to overcome these deficiencies. The analytic hierarchy process
(AHP) has been a popular technique for factor weighting as an in-
put to FIS (Abbasimehr & Tarokh, 2017; Singh, Olugu, Musa, & Ma-
hat, 2018; Tavana et al., 2017). AHP has been limited in that it
cannot capture the interrelations among the factors. The analyti-
cal network process (ANP) is used to address the interdependency
of factors as a concern (Ramkumar, 2016; Ramkumar et al., 2016).
Even with the advantages of ANP, the interactions among the fac-
tors and their effect on decision-making processes cannot be fully
captured.
Interactions in decision models call for inclusion of both indi-
vidual decision factor weights and weights of joint influences of
factors (Tan & Chen, 2010). Interaction effects can provide more
appropriate weighting of factors when there are ‘superadditivity’,
synergy, and ‘subadditivity’, redundancy or negative synergy, con-
cerns (Grabisch, 1996).
Taking the PD case as a practical example, a simultaneously un-
satisfactory score of a pair of decision factors with a positive in-
teraction causes greater importance than the sum of single fac-
tors alone, especially at the aggregate, accumulated influence, level.
For example, the relationship between factors "low total profit of a
product" and "low logistics flexibility triggered by a product’s op-
erational needs" is a good example of a synergistic weighting sit-
uation. In this case, the importance of the two factors occurring
simultaneously is greater than if each influence is considered sep-
arately to make the PD decision. For example, a manager would
see that if a product performs badly at one of these aspects sepa-
rately, they may view it with much less concern, but together, the
concern becomes well above the concern of each handled sepa-
rately. In this case, due to the complementary nature of these two
measures with one focused on cost measures and the other on op-
 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288
erational measures, two organizationally different metrics, a syner-
gistic effect occurs.
Alternatively, a score for two decision factors with a redundant,
subadditive, negative interaction lessens the respective importance
weight of the combination of these two factors. An example of this
occurs between the salient factors of "high variance in customer
feedback" and "negative customer feedback" on products. Since
there is a strong relationship and redundancy amongst these cus-
tomer feedback factors, a reduction of their accumulated influence
on the decision outcome is warranted. This subadditive reduction
is needed so as not to excessively weight the customer feedback
dimension at the expense of other less redundant, more synergistic
and informative, factors. Essentially, the argument is that too much
redundancy may double-count some factors and that this double
counting needs to be discounted.
The FIS models in the literature merely considered impor-
tance weights of factors, and none of them employ factor inter-
action considerations. This is particularly important when defining
generic fuzzy rules for a Nested-FIS. This study sees these inter-
actions as necessary to fully grasp relative factor importance and
effectively model the decision-making environment. A systematic
mechanism linked to FIS can be used to address these factor inter-
action concerns more effectively. We propose using MACBETH as
a complementary methodology with a novel Nested-FIS technique.
The proposed method differs from existing relevant approaches for
multi-criteria decision-making due to the following points: first of
all, intuitionistic fuzzy set theory is used rather than fuzzy set the-
ory; secondly, the phenomenon of interaction among the decision
factors is considered, which makes it more feasible and practi-
cal than other traditional aggregation operators for real decision-
making problems. The proposed combination makes the FIS model
more suitable for application as a strategic decision aid method in
PD. It can also be generalized to other complex decision domains,
where interactions among factors are significant.
3.3. The decision aid method
The methodology consists of a number of steps and stages.
Overall, the process includes identifying factors; determining de-
cision factors and alternative values; structuring and executing the
NFISI network; arriving at overall alternative scores and prioritiz-
ing them accordingly. Fig. 1 shows the major steps, sub-steps, and
requirements of the decision aid method. These steps are now clar-
ified.
Step 1. Identification and Filtering of the Pertinent Factors
As an initiation point, the pertinent factors identified in the lit-
erature research are presented to the decision maker to help iden-
tify the most relevant, salient factors for further analysis. Filter-
ing of salient factors through reduction from a larger set of fac-
tors may be necessary to make the MCDM model practicable (Dou
& Sarkis, 2010). In order to focus on the most important factors
when dealing with managerial problems (Koch, 2011), a systematic
process of factors filtering is needed. For this purpose, the best-
worst method developed by (Rezaei, 2015) is preferred to direct
judgment of the expert over salience of the decision factors. This
method requires fewer comparison data compared to the other ap-
proaches and also guarantees consistency in the comparison ma-
trix. The method is straightforward; both in terms of data collec-
tion and calculation (see Appendix A). A list of salient factors (SFx )
will be the outcome of this step.
Step 2. Determine Decision Factor Weights and Interaction Values
Having a precise numerical measure for all decision factors is
not always possible, particularly when the quick perceptual evalu-
ation of many SKUs is the case. Usually, many types of decision
277
factors are included (e.g., qualitative vs. quantitative), for exam-
ple, financial factors are quantifiable measures whereas the sup-
ply chain attributes like flexibility and quality, and the competitive
forces are categorized as unquantifiable measures. Different factors
can be associated with different measurement units. Without some
transformation or normalization, these differences make the aggre-
gation procedure unreasonable.
In order to tackle these measure differences, transforming ver-
bal judgment decision maker measures with respect to each crite-
rion into a relative commensurate score of alternatives is essential
for the MCDM process (Clivillé & Berrah, 2012). This transforma-
tion is particularly important for developing general fuzzy rules for
step-by-step aggregation of heterogeneous decision factors within
the NFISI model. The utility function from MACBETH maps the ac-
tual alternative performance to satisfaction/dissatisfaction degree
with respect to each criterion and in the form of an [0,1] interval
scale (see Bana E Costa (2012)).
The resulting vector of elementary scores for a factor i of prod-
uct k– (ESik ) will be used as inputs to execute NFISI in Step 4 (and
the illustrative application). TheseESik are basic product scores on
each factor without any factor interaction effect consideration, set-
ting a baseline for each product’s value, in terms of likelihood of
deletion; which could be considered how unsatisfied managers are
with product characteristics making them more likely to delete a
product.
The next major step of MACBETH takes the qualitative judgment
about the difference between randomly generated pairs of scenar-
ios determining PD likelihood. This step determines an estimation
for the direct and interaction factor utilities along with the impor-
tance weights. This comparison is completed by offering competing
products with varying salient factor levels generated for compara-
tive purposes.
MACBETH traditionally uses a weighted average method (Bana E
Costa et al., 1994). However, if the [un]satisfactory level of one fac-
tor influences other factor valuations, there is interaction among
the decision factors. In this situation, conventional aggregation
methods, such as summing simple weighted average methods, are
not suitable for modeling a decision maker’s preferences. Con-
ventional aggregators cannot distinguish the difference between
the decisions of a strict and non-strict decision maker and do
not reflect exceptional circumstances (e.g., veto power). For this
reason, MACBETH was later extended (Cliville, Berrah, & Mauris,
2007) to include the Choquet Integral (CI) integrating factor inter-
action effects. It has been applied for performance measurement
in the supply chain context (Clivillé & Berrah, 2012), among other
fields of study. CI enables considering interactions among the de-
cision factors (Grabisch & Labreuche, 2016). The interaction effect
amongst a pair of decision factors can be defined using Eq. (1).
Ii j = μ({i, j} ) − (μ({i} ) + μ({ j} ) ) + μ(Ø ) (1)
This equation reflects the utility value difference between the
case where both of the decision factors are at a satisfactory
levelμ({i, j}) and the cases where at most one factor performs
satisfactorilyμ({i}) + μ({j}). The final term in expression (1) reflects
the case where neither of the decision factors performs satisfac-
torily. Therefore, Iij is an average marginal interaction value be-
tween factors i and j. This value will be positive if the deci-
sion maker is strict, which means the decision maker demands
satisfactory performance for all the decision factors in order for
the alternative to having an agreeable overall performance (that
is, μ({i}) = μ({j}) = 0, where a 0 value for one of the factors re-
flects overall dissatisfaction). Alternatively, the interaction is neg-
ative if the decision maker is non-strict, loose, and a satisfactory
level of only one factor is enough for overall satisfaction (that is,
μ({i}) = μ({j}) = 1, where a 1 value for one of the factors reflects
the overall satisfaction). For a negligible interaction, the overall in-
278 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288
Fig. 1. The 4-step decision aid method.
teraction value is equal to the summation of individual contribu-
tions, that is μ({i, j}) = μ({i}) + μ({j}), which is a simple additive
measure (Grabisch, Kojadinovic, & Meyer, 2008).
In order to determine the importance coefficients of decision
factors and the model, the interaction amongst the decision fac-
tors the 2-additive CI model is considered. In this case, the inter-
action between a pair of decision factors at a time will be cap-
tured to keep a reasonable balance between the complexity of ap-
plying the approach and preciseness of the outcome. In so doing,
parameters must be determined through a combination of quali-
tative judgments and solving the following optimization problem.
 1   
n n
PCI = vi pi − Ii j pi − p j 
2 n (n+1 )
i=1 i=1
Subject to:
1   
n
vi − Ii j ≥ 0, ∀i ∈ [1, n], j = i
2 e Costa, 2008), but makes the data collection procedure lengthier.
j=1
In this set of equations,pi represents the vector of binary val-
ues comprising [ES1K ,…, ESi K ] for a generic product k, obtained
through the first step of applying MACBETH; vi andIij represent the
importance weight for factor i, and the interaction value between
factors i and j, respectively.
In the next sub-step of Step 2, decision makers make a set of
comparisons among the pair of randomly generated object scenar-
ios using verbal levels of attractiveness (very weak, weak, mod-
erate, strong, very strong, extreme) adapted from (Bana E Costa, &
Vansnick, 1997). For example, the scenarioP1(0,0,1) is a three decision
factor case for product 1, where the third factor is set at a high
level. If the PD decision in scenario 1 is perceived as "extremely
likelier" (or more preferred) compared to the second product sce-
nario,P2(0,1,0) , the respective judgment can be translated to the fol-
lowing equation (from expression (2)):
1 1
P1(
0,0,1 )
− P2(
0,1,0 )
= v3 − [I13 + I23 ] − v2 + [I12 + I23 ]
2 2
1
= v3 − v2 − [I13 − I12 ] = 6α
2
n
Alpha (α ) is a virtual parameter to ensure that i=1 vi = 1.
(2) In order to determine the model parameters as well asα value,
2 + 1 such scenarios comparisons are necessary to determine
the decision parameters, where n is the number of decision criteria
(Grabisch et al., 2008). Additional comparisons in this step of MAC-
(3) BETH may increase accuracy (Bana E Costa, Lourenço, Chagas, &
For example, assuming 3 criteria, decision parameters, and the al-
pha values can be determined through the construction of 7 com-
parative equations. This study adopted the approach developed by
(Clivillé & Berrah, 2012). The procedure is further explained in the
case study illustration.
Step 3. Structure the NFISI Decision Network
The decision network (overall module) is formed using two
types of basic “sub-modules” (see Fig. 2). We have defined these
 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288
Fig. 2. General structure of the Nested-FIS with Interactions (NFISI).
as sub-modules of type-A (FIS-A) and type-B (FIS-B). This study
employs a fuzzy rule-base, instead of simple weighted average ag-
gregators, to estimate the relativity indicator between two factors
i and j (RIi,j ), which is completed using sub-module type-A (FIS-A).
RIi,j is a measure of relativity among a pair of factors that simul-
taneously accounts for the possible interaction among the criteria
and the inherent uncertainty in the importance weight differences.
Step 4 details their determination through a fuzzy rule base sys-
tem.
Sub-module type-B (FIS-B) is a triple-input, single-output FIS.
The triple inputs for sub-module type-B include: theRIi,j output of
sub-module type-A, and the competing ESik and ESjk generated in
Step 2 for the two factors that are to be aggregated for a given
product k. The aggregated score for product k from FIS sub-module
B-x is represented by ASxk ; it serves as the inputs for the FIS-B at
the next layer, which aggregates scores further.
Finally, OSk is the overall aggregated score for product k and
results from FIS B-(N-1) as the final sub-module of NFISI. The al-
gorithm, coded in MATLAB software, includes a number of compu-
tational layers each of which comprises at least two sub-modules,
and the total number of sub-module runs depends on the number
of decision factors. If there are an odd number of decision factors,
the remaining input at the first layer can be considered as the out-
put of this layer and be integrated for the aggregated score in the
next layer.
279
Step 4. Execute NFISI for All Alternatives (products considered for
deletion)
To obtain the overall score for a product k (OSk ), the first group
of inputs is the relativity indicator which is required for each of
the aggregating sub-modules (type-B) in the NFISI structure. For
this purpose, the sub-module type-A is designed to capture the ef-
fect of interactions among the criteria at every stage of NFISI. This
relativity valuation depends on the factor importance weight (vi )
and its interaction valuation (Ii,j ) from the MACBETH steps to de-
termine the RIi,j at layer one. The accumulated interaction among
criteria pairs is considered at the other layers of the decision net-
work, which is constructed as a hierarchical tournament compar-
ison setting, as described in the previous step. The resulting RIi,j
along with the ESik will be used as input to the FIS-B. In order
to ensure a general decision network –the NFISI, the input factors
have to be sorted. In so doing, the first input is always the criterion
with larger importance. It is also important to note that inputs in
this study are defined in a way that a larger value increases the
likelihood of the PD decision.
The rule-base of sub-modules FIS-A and FIS-B are generic and
defined based on general understanding of aggregation at the sub-
nov niv
module level; it requires a total of i=1 ( j=1 L j ) linguistic con-
ditions; wherenovis the number of outputs defined for one set of
input variables,nivis the number of input variables, andLj represents
the number of defined linguistic terms for the input variables
280 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288

Table 2 Table 5
Membership functions of FIS type-A first input (the in- Fuzzy rule-base for determination of RIi,j .
teraction value Ii,j ). ∼
The difference in importance weights ( v ) Interaction (Ii,j )
i, j
Linguistic term Membership function parameters
Negative Negligible Positive
Negative (−1,−1,−0.001,0)
Negligible (−0.0 01,0,0,0.0 01) Very weakly different SL NS MS
Positive (0,0.001,1,1) Weakly different SL SS HS
Moderately different NS SS HS
Strongly different NS MS ES
Table 3
Very strongly different SS MS ES
Membership functions of FIS type-A second input (the factor
∼
weight difference  v ).
i, j

Linguistic term Membership function parameters Table 6

Very weakly different
Weakly different
Moderately different
Strongly different
Very strongly different
Table 4
Membership functions of FIS type-A output (the relativity index
RIi,j ).
Linguistic term
Linguistic terms for the inputs of FIS-B (the elementary
(0, 0, 0.1, 0.2) scores ESik ).
(1, 0.25, 0.25, 0.4)
(0.3, 0.5, 0.5, 0.7) Elementary term∗ Membership function parameters
(0.6, 0.75, 0.75, 0.9)
Negligible (0, 0, 1, 2)
(0.8, 0.9, 1, 1)
Low (1, 2.5, 2.5, 4)
Moderate (3, 5, 5, 7)
High (6, 7.5, 7.5, 9)
Extreme (8, 9, 10, 10)
∗
Smaller-is-better
Membership function parameters

Slightly loose (SL) (0,0,1,2) Table 7

Non-strict (NS) (1,2.5,2.5,4) Linguistic terms for the output of FIS-B (the aggregated score ASxk ).
Slightly strict (SS) (3,4.5,4.5,6)
Aggregation term Membership function parameters
Moderately strict (MS) (4,5.5,5.5,7)
Highly strict (HS) (6,7.5,7.5,9) Negligible (N) (0,0,1,2)
Extremely strict (ES) (8,9,10,10) Very Low (VL) (1,2,2,3)
Low (L) (2,3,3,4)
Low Moderate (LM) (3,4,4,5)
Moderate (M) (4,5,5,6)
(Bashiri & Hosseininezhad, 2009). For example, with one output
High Moderate (HM) (5,6,6,7)
variable (nov = 1), two input variables (niv = 2), and three linguis- High (H) (6,7,7,8)
tic levels for each of the input variables (L1 = L2 = 5), the number Very High (VH) (7,8,8,9)
of fuzzy rules is (5 × 5) = 25. This is the situation for each of the Extreme (E) (8,9,10,10)
FIS-A sub-modules.
∼
Usingvi from Step 2 we first determine a normalized weight vfor
i
each factor at the sub-module level. The normalization expression ∼
The normalized importance weight differences ( v ) are repre-
is shown in expression (4). i, j
∼ vi ∼ vj sented by the rows in Table 5 and is the second input to FIS-A
v= ,v = (4) ∼
i vi + v j j vi + v j sub-module of the NFISI structure.  v can be calculated using ex-
i, j
∼ pression 4, and ranges from very weakly different to very strongly
 v values are then calculated based on the normalized im-
i, j different. Thus, using Table 5 rule base as an example, ifIi,j is “Negli-
∼ ∼ ∼
portance weights for factors i and j, ( v , v ) within each aggregation gible” (2nd Column) and  v is “Moderately Different” (3rd Row),
i j i, j
sub-module using the expression (5). the output RIi,j from these two is “slightly strict” (SS).
∼ ∼ 
∼   Finally, defuzzification should take place to convert the output
 v = vi − v j  (5) from its current format (fuzzy membership functions) to a crisp
i, j
∼
value. This process differs in the way the crisp value is estimated
The fuzzy membership functions for input terms (Ii,j , v ) and from the union of different membership functions which result
i, j
output term (RIi,j ) and the generic rule-base of the FIS-A sub- from the rule-base (Ross, 2010). A handful of defuzzification meth-
module forRIij are defined in Tables 2–5, respectively. The linear ods are developed in the literature among which centroids and
triangular and trapezoidal membership functions, the most fre- maxima methods have usually been used as standard approaches
quently used approaches in the literature, are applied for fuzzifica- (Talon & Curt, 2017). To this end, Centroid of Area (COA) along with
tion of input data (Chen, 2009). Using fuzzified input variables and the maxima methods, Smallest of Maximum (SOM), Mean of Maxi-
the rule-base, RIi,j is estimated to demonstrate the extent a factor mum (MOM), and Largest of Maximum (LOM) are employed in this
is contributing to the output value at each sub-module level. study to determine this defuzzified value.
In Table 4, the linguistic output terms range from slightly loose The step-wise aggregation sub-module (FIS-B) then usesRIi,j
to extremely strict. The slightly loose result occurs when the dif- along with ESik and ESjk as inputs to generate the aggregated score
∼ (ASxk ). In executing FIS-B, the inference engine processes the data
ference in importance weights ( v ) is small and the interaction
i, j considering two groups of inputs from Steps 2 and 4 and the gen-
is negative. Extremely strict occurs when there is a significant fac- eral rule-base and generates the corresponding fuzzy output. For
tor importance weight difference and a positive interaction value this purpose, the fuzzy membership functions for the input and
among the factors. Extremely strict refers to the case where one output variables, and the generic rule-base of sub-module FIS-B
factor contributes greatly to the aggregation procedure. are elaborated in Tables 6–8, respectively; the specifications are
In Table 5, the columns represent whether the interaction term similar to FIS-A. Referring to Table 8 as the rule base of FIS-B,
(Ii,j ) calculated by expression (1) is negative, negligible or positive. and considering an example whereRIi,j is “Slightly Loose” (1st sub-
 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288 281
Table 8
Fuzzy rules for FIS-B, with respect to relativity indicators.

RIi,j : Slightly loose ESik

Negligible Low Moderate High Extreme

ESjk Negligible N L L M M
Low L L M M H
Moderate L M M H H
High M M H H E
Extreme M H H E E
RIi,j : Non-strict ESik

Negligible Low Moderate High Extreme

ESjk Negligible N VL L LM M
Low VL L LM M HM
Moderate L LM M HM H
High LM M HM H VH
Extreme M HM H VH E
RIi,j : Slightly Strict ESik

Negligible Low Moderate High Extreme

ESjk Negligible N N L L M
Low L L L M M
Moderate L M M M H
High M M H H H
Extreme M H H E E
RIi,j : Moderately Strict ESik

Negligible Low Moderate High Extreme

ESjk Negligible N N N L L
Low L L L L M
Moderate M M M M M
High M H H H H
Extreme H H E E E
RIi,j : Highly Strict ESik

Negligible Low Moderate High Extreme

ESjk Negligible N N N N L
Low L L L L L
Moderate M M M M M
High H H H H H
Extreme H E E E E
RIi,j : Extremely Strict ESik

Negligible Low Moderate High Extreme

ESjk Negligible N N N N N
Low L L L L L
Moderate M M M M M
High H H H H H
Extreme E E E E E

table), ESik and ESjk are “Moderate” (3rd Column) and “Extreme”
(5th Row), the resulting output (ASxk ) is “High”.
4. An illustrative application
4.1. Case company background
The case company is one of the oldest multinational consumer
goods producers. It is ranked among the world’s five largest com-
panies in FMCG based on net sales. The company operates glob-
ally, and provides a range of products, from food and refreshments
to home and personal care, with over 400 established brands.
This study uses food and refreshment products, which includes
the retail business (business-to-consumer) and solution business
(business-to-business). Products of the studied company can be
categorized into "local products" which are sourced and produced
in China, and "imported products" which are made elsewhere.
Considering the company’s reputation in the FMCG sector, the
identified factors and the developed decision model have been
confirmed by a business development manager of the company,
who previously served as sales manager for nearly six years. Two
rounds of interviews were used to help gather the input data for
this study.
According to the interviewee, the company is planning to in-
crease the speed of launching new products. The long-term plan of
the company is shifting the business model from a manufacturer to
a platform where most of the production is outsourced. PD is ex-
pected to become more important in the future of the company’s
operations. Given the outsourcing strategy, supply chain issues are
also likely to become even more prevalent. Currently, the PD deci-
sions occur in the case company either as a short-term action or a
planned one in forms of a mid-/long- term practice.
4.2. Application of the developed model
4.2.1. Data collection and preparation
Many of the model parameters used are based on two rounds of
interviews: an introductory interview about the on-going PD prac-
tice with the determination of salient factors through a system-
atic filtering and screening process (see Appendix A); and a struc-
tured interview where a number of pairwise random scenarios for
PD were evaluated by the interviewee. A hypothetical case is con-
282 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288
Table 9
Salient factors resulting from the filtering process.
Factors Symbol
High variance in customer feedback SF1
Strategic-fit contradiction SF2
Low total profit SF3
Negative customer feedback SF4
Low flexibility in the company’s logistics SF5
High level of allocated supply chain resources SF6
High logistics expenses SF7
Average time in the supply chain SF8
Fig. 3. Decision maker’s judgment on "Strategic-fit contradiction".
sidered where several SKUs of the company should go through a
quick audit in order to be prioritized for possible deletion.
The fifteen factors listed in Table 1 were deemed relevant to
the particular case of FMCG and chosen (by the interviewee) as PD
decision criteria. For the sake of simplicity, the first eight decision
factors are considered as the salient factors (SFx ). The factors listed
in Table 9 showed the highest prominence in the filtering process
(Appendix A), and together account for about 80 percent of con-
tribution to the PD decision. The rest of the factors, i.e. the com-
petitive factors, may be recognized as salient PD factors in other
industries, like apparel and sports goods.
The FMCG product manager is given five products within a hy-
pothetical case. Two products are exemplary: extreme cases, in or-
der to keep the comparison simple and consistent, while asking for
fewer comparative judgments (Kirkwood, 1997). The undesirable
exemplary product represents an undesirable SKU (SKU-U) which
is poorly performing and very likely to be deleted, and a desirable
exemplary product (SKU-D) which is likely to survive the deletion
evaluation. The other three products are assumed to go through
an initial screening of the SKUs; most show some unsatisfactory
performance. For example, SKU-A shows the weakest sales per-
formance compared to the other two SKUs. SKU-B is performing
better financially, but is a poorer relative strategic-fit. SKU-C is a
burdensome product in terms of supply chain operational metrics,
while representing an average performance in terms of financial,
market, and strategic considerations.
M-Macbeth software determines the relative commensurate
scores on product performance for each criterion. The software
progressively checks if the three measurement conditions (see
Bana E Costa (2012)) are true with the entered judgment and con-
firms whether there is any inconsistency with the comparison ma-
trix of decision factors before generating the final scores. The lin-
guistic inputs used in this scoring system identifies the extent a
row item is worse than a column item; this is the qualitative pair-
wise judgment of “how much worse is the item in the row com-
pared to the column item”. For example, SKU-B is strongly worse
than SKU-C and SKU-A in terms of "strategic-fit contradiction", as
shown in Fig. 3. However, SKU-B is weakly better than the exem-
plary undesirable product. Accordingly, the SKUs can be prioritized
from worst to best (B, C, and A) considering this specific decision
factor. Following the same procedure, Table 10 provides the order
of likelihood for deletion considering each criterion. However, the
final prioritization can only be completed after having an aggre-
gated measure that includes all decision factors and their interac-
tions as defined by the NFISI methodology.
In this step, the decision model parameters, the importance
weights, and interaction parameters are determined. Given the to-
tal number of decision factors and the alpha value, 37 pairwise
product scenario comparisons should take place in order to deter-
mine the 8-factor importance weights and 28 interaction param-
eters. To this end, the managerial pairwise qualitative preferences
of product scenarios are presented. The responding FMCG manager
was asked the following question: "How much more likely is the
decision on deletion of a certain product in the first scenario com-
pared to the other?" The linguistic comparisons are then translated
into linear algebraic equations (Table B.1 of Appendix B). The solu-
tion to this set of equations, the importance weights, and interac-
tion indexes are summarized in Table 11.
Results from this step indicate that five interaction terms (I1,3 ,
I1,4 , I1,5 , I1,7 , I3,7 ) have a negative value. In other words, the cor-
responding pairs of factors are perceived as redundant, and the
overall importance weight of each pair is less than the case where
there is negligible interaction. In this case, a more flexible scheme
compared to the other cases should be applied in the inference
system of the respective aggregation sub-modules at NFISI. This
scheme can be non-strict (optimistic aggregation) when the dif-
ference of importance among two decision factors is not large. For
example, aggregation of SF1 and SF7 should take place based on a
non-strict scheme, because this pair of decision factors represents
a negligible difference in the importance value. A small score for
the first criterion is favorable, and can compensate for the sec-
ond criterion’s high corresponding value, even if it is relatively
more important in the overall situation. When the difference be-
tween importance weights of the two decision factors is consid-
erably large, the more important factor dominates the aggregation
despite the weak value of the other factor (e.g. I3,7 in the illustra-
tive case).
4.2.2. Executing NFISI for all alternatives
The schematic structure of the developed NFISI for this illus-
trative problem situation is in Fig. 4, where eight decision factors
are included in the PD evaluation. The fuzzy membership functions
and rules were described in the previous section. The final re-
sults for prioritizing the candidate products for deletion are shown
here. Moreover, and following other FIS applications (Amindoust
et al., 2012; Ordoobadi, 2009), five different methods of defuzzi-
fication are applied to show the robustness of the Overall Aggre-
gate Score from the NFISI method for a product. The Overall Ag-
gregated Scores, under different defuzzification methods, appear in
Table 12. In this analysis, altering the defuzzification method does
not lead to a major change in the decision-making outcome. De-
spite the difference in the overall value for the candidate SKUs, the
prioritization of the products remains the same when using differ-
ent methods, which helps validate the accuracy of the developed
model over different phases of defuzzification.
Apart from the exemplary undesirable product which received
the highest overall dissatisfaction score, SKU-B is unanimously
given the highest priority for PD. In other words, this SKU has the
highest unsatisfactory score when considering its status with re-
spect to all the salient decision factors. SKU-C is next to SKU-B in
Table 12, while representing a significantly better (smaller) score
compared to SKU-B. SKU-A is likely to survive this evaluation pro-
cess, and remains in the organization’s product portfolio. Expect-
edly, the lowest priority for PD is for the exemplary desirable can-
didate.
After executing NFISI, the salient supply chain factors are ex-
cluded from the analysis to determine the robustness of the so-
lution, and whether supply chain operational factors can play a
 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288 283

Table 10
Elementary scores (ESik ) of products on each criterion.

Products Salient factors

SF1 SF2 SF3 SF4 SF5 SF6 SF7 SF8

SKU-U 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0

Priority 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
SKU-A 2.508 1.828 5.714 6.363 2.143 3.334 3.371 3.089
Priority 4 4 2 2 3 3 3 4
SKU-B 7.530 8.182 2.143 5.450 1.786 0.833 1.315 4.612
Priority 2 2 4 3 4 4 4 3
SKU-C 3.350 3.637 4.286 1.809 8.362 5.00 7.312 7.631
Priority 3 3 3 4 2 2 2 2
SKU-D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Priority 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Table 11
Model parameters: importance weights and interaction indexes.

V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 I1,2 I1,3 I1,4 I1,5

0.0243 0.1897 0.2246 0.0941 0.1419 0.1229 0.0577 0.1449 0.0501 −0.0379 −0.0364 −0.0273
I1,6 I1,7 I1,8 I2,3 I2,4 I2,5 I2,6 I2,7 I2,8 I3,4 I3,5 I3,6
0.0243 −0.0137 0.0501 0.1745 0.0364 0.1442 0.0592 0.0971 0.0819 0.1533 0.2367 0.1442
I3,7 I3,8 I4,5 I4,6 I4,7 I4,8 I5,6 I5,7 I5,8 I6,7 I6,8 I7,8
−0.0258 0.132 0.0728 0.0653 0.0395 0.0364 0.0637 0.0865 0.0744 0.0349 0.0243 0.1002

Fig. 4. Nested-Fuzzy Inference System with Interactions.

284 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288

Table 12 is shown that high variance in customer feedback is as crucial as

Overall dissatisfaction scores and priority from the set of
the negative feedback to a PD decision. On the supply side, low
candidate SKUs for deletion.
flexibility in the operational capabilities is introduced as a factor
Products Nested-FIS with Interactions which may encourage PD implementation. The results also show
COAa BOMb MOMc SOMd LOMe that the longer average time a product spends in the supply chain
SKU-U 9.24 9.3 9.5 8.5 10
can contribute greatly to a PD decision, given the costs and barriers
Priority 1 1 1 1 1 it causes. The importance of supply chain activities in FMCG makes
SKU-A 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.9 3.6 the aforementioned factors even more important for PDDM in this
Priority 4 4 3 3 4 sector. Simply considering total profit, which is the on-going prac-
SKU-B 7.0 7.0 7.0 4.3 7.1
tice in the case study company, cannot guarantee the company’s
Priority 2 2 2 2 2
SKU-C 5.0 3.4 3.0 2.9 5.6 long-term financial performance. The balance between costs and
Priority 3 3 3 3 3 benefits of keeping or deleting a product in the long term may not
SKU-D 0.75 0.7 0.5 0 1.5 match the short-term profit perspective currently in place.
Priority 5 5 5 5 5 A second evident implication from the analysis shows that
a
Center of area. considering interaction amongst factors significantly influences
b
Bisector of area. decision-making outcomes. When there is a synergy amongst two
c
Mean of maximum. factors (positive interaction), it becomes essential to include this
d
Smallest of maximum.
e
Largest of maximum.
factor interaction when evaluating alternatives. Positive interaction
amongst the salient supply chain factors and the financial factor
role in the ultimate deletion decision. These results are added to of low total profit is the best example of this circumstance. This
Table 13 (Set 1 –Traditional factors), which also includes all factors example factor interaction confirms the necessity of putting em-
from Table 12’s final column ranking. phasis on the aforementioned factors when approaching the PD
The first row of Table 13 shows the prioritization based only on decision. Alternatively, the factors with negative interaction share,
a profit ranking. The candidate PD priorities, except for the exem- to some extent, a similar objection and their combination should
plary SKUs, have changed. The overall score and priority of SKU-B not be overemphasized in the evaluation process. Application of
remain about the same when comparing sets 1 and 2. However, it other techniques, such as AHP and ANP, may lead to major changes
is given the first priority for deletion in both cases (after the ex- in the decision-making outcomes due to synergy or redundancy
emplary SKU). This result is in contrast with the on-going PD prac- amongst the factors that may not be captured, since zero or negli-
tice of the company, according to which the SKU-B would survive gible interaction is assumed.
this evaluation and remain in the company’s portfolio due to its This study’s proposed technique provides a ranking of the alter-
profitability. In other words, SKU-B as an un-fit product might not natives for eventual PD implementation. The decision maker can
have been deleted if only financial performance is considered, even arrive at a final decision based on the priorities given to the al-
though it is adversely impacting overall profitability. SKU-C has ternatives, and decide to delete one or more SKUs based on the
a weaker overall score after taking supply chain decision factors company’s situation. A measure for the overall score of each dele-
into consideration, although its rank remains the same over the tion alternative is also provided. This measure aids management
three scenarios. SKU-A could have been dropped from the com- to effectively analyze and compare the gaps amongst alternatives.
pany’s portfolio in case of applying the on-going practice. When Management can also set a threshold for the overall score, a sat-
compared to the situation where only low sales volume and unit isficing approach, and delete all the alternatives which receive a
profit is considered, the below-average sales performance of SKU-A score worse than the threshold, while considering the situation.
is compensated through the inclusion of supply chain operational The developed approach can also be applied for the selection of
factors, making it the last priority of deletion amongst the other alternative products for launch from the "innovation gate" of the
alternatives. SKU-B is performing better financially, but it does not company. In this particular application area, the fuzziness of the
conform to strategic-fit of the company, and the positive inter- approach can be particularly useful since there is no real data of
action value among the sales performance and the other factors the possible performance of each alternative after the launch.
averts it from a positive compensation in the overall score. Although the developed model is suitable for application in
similar industries, such as sports goods and apparel industries,
4.3. Discussion there are limitations to our study. The factors, importance weights,
and interactions will vary depending on the context. The first limi-
To successfully apply strategic PD, a decision aid method, as tation of this study is the consideration of a single illustrative com-
part of an expert system, considering a broader set of decision pany and industry situation. Future studies with other contexts
factors is necessary. The major issue in current PD practice is a may require different or additional PD decision factors in accor-
disregard of operational and competitive factors; especially along dance with industrial and company characteristics. Other factor di-
the supply chain. Additionally, taking interactions among the fac- mensions such as feasibility, sustainability, and risks, may be uti-
tors into account is of significant importance to MCDM outcomes. lized in addition to the studied operational and competitive fac-
The following managerial implications can be extrapolated from tors. This approach would likely entail involvement by additional
the study. organizational functions such as environmental management, en-
The first evident implication can be drawn from the results of gineering, risk management tools, and life cycle thinking for a PD
the first two steps of the multi-stage, multi-method expert system. decision. For example, the studied FMCG case company has a very
The initial results confirm that the operational and competitive fac- strict assessment of various sustainability factors, and a product
tors listed in Table 1, in addition to the traditional factors intro- that does not satisfy the company’s standards cannot be launched
duced by earlier studies (Avlonitis, 1984, 1993; Avlonitis & Argous- in the first place. Environmental and risk factors can be particularly
lidis, 2012; Avlonitis et al., 20 0 0; Mitchell et al., 1998), are all rec- influential to PD decisions, especially in industries facing interna-
ognized by the experts as relevant. We have noticed that, given the tional regulations and regulatory compliance. Another main limita-
examples, some of the supply chain operational factors are more tion of this study is the number of respondents and the fact that
significant for PD decisions; inclusion of these factors makes a dif- it did not contain the managers across other disciplines involved
ference in the decision-making outcomes. On the demand side, it in PDDM. Overcoming this limitation, particularly through apply-
 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288 285

Table 13
Comparison results (financial factor vs comprehensive sets).

Products Low total profit Set 1 –Traditional factors (SF1 : SF4 ) Set 2 –All factors (SF1 : SF8 )

SKU-U 10 10 10
Priority 1 1 1
SKU-A 5.7 3.6 3.6
Priority 2 3 4
SKU-B 2.1 7.5 7.1
Priority 4 2 2
SKU-C 4.3 3.6 5.6
Priority 3 3 3
SKU-D 0 1.5 1.5
Priority 5 5 5

ing the developed model in other industries, is another potential Acknowledgments

research opportunity that will contribute to the understudied topic
of PD. This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation
of China (71632007, 71690241, and 71472021).

5. Conclusions
Appendix A
Acknowledging the role of supply chains, business activities go
After determining the most important decision factor and its
beyond just traditional financial thinking. A number of organiza-
preference over the others (Tables A.1), and the least important de-
tional strategic decisions need to incorporate supply chain opera-
cision factor and preferences of other decision factors to the least
tional aspects, because competencies of a company rest upon its
important decision factor, (Tables A.2), optimum value of weight
supply chain performance (Pourhejazy & Kwon, 2016). Critical and
and ε can be obtained by solving the following optimization prob-
strategic decisions that used to be made based on short-term fi-
lem:
nancial indicators can and should be revised using systematic ap-
proaches that take into account strategic and non-financial aspects. Min ε (A1)
This study introduced a broader set of decision factors to the PD
decision process including consideration of competitive and sup- Subject to:
 
ply chain factors. An expert system is developed which includes  Wbest 
 
multiple criteria and fuzzy approaches to filter, generate data to
 W j − am, j  ≤ ε (A2)
form the knowledge base, and aggregate data in a series of stages.
This paper proposes using and extending NFISI, as the inference  
 Wj 
engine of the expert system, and conducting a simultaneous anal-  
ysis of traditional and supply chain operational factors that interact  Wworst − a j,l  ≤ ε (A3)

in the evaluation. Given the comparatively more frequent nature of


PD practices in FMCG, an illustrative case from a well-known com- Wj = 1 (A4)
pany from this sector is put forward to verify the applicability of j
the model Results of the case are discussed from the perspective
of traditional factors and broader evaluations, including integrat-
ing the supply chain operational factors into the traditional fac- Table A.2
tors. Our initial finding from this study is that the inclusion of the BWM data from the interviewee: the least important factor com-
introduced salient factors, even for a small problem, can radically pared to others.
change the final decision. Thus, careful examination and data eval- Least Important Criterion: C12
uation are needed, and various complexities in relationships and
The other decision factors C1 9
interactions can cause diversions away from simpler evaluations. C2 7
Overall, this study provides an opportunity for an under- C3 7
researched topic to blossom in many directions including empir- C4 5
ical, case, and analytical studies. Application of operations research C5 7
C6 5
approaches is a possible research direction to contribute to the PD C7 4
decision-making topic. PD also brings further attention to the need C8 5
for strategic consideration of PD decisions, similar to the strate- C9 7
gic consideration of new product development and introduction. C10 3
C11 4
When additional data on applying strategic PD is available, one
C13 2
can assess the extent to which the competitive and supply chain C14 2
factors can actually benefit from the decision. Finally, PD can be C15 4
studied as a tool for improving the sustainability and resilience of
supply chains i.e. through optimization approaches.

Table A.1
BWM data from the interviewee: the most important factor compared to others.

The other decision factors

Most Important Criterion: C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15

3 3 5 3 5 6 5 3 7 6 9 8 8 6
286 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288

Table A.3
Factor weights from BWM.

Factor C1 ∗ C2 ∗ C3 ∗ C4 ∗ C5 ∗ C6 ∗ C7 C8 ∗

Importance 0.2587 0.0862 0.0862 0.0517 0.0862 0.0517 0.0431 0.0517

Rank 1 2 2 6 2 6 9 6

Factor C9 ∗ C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 ε

Importance 0.0862 0.0370 0.0431 0.0103 0.0323 0.0323 0.0431 0.1655
Rank 2 12 9 15 13 13 9 -
∗
Chosen as a salient factor (SFx ).

The objective function ensures maximum reliability of the re- Appendix B

sults (higherε is equivalent to less consistency among the compar-
isons). The parametersam,j andaj,l demonstrate the pairwise compar-
ison of the most and the least significant criterion with the rest
of decision factors, respectively. Wbest ,Wworst , andWj are the deci-
sion variables representing reference and non-reference variables
(Table A.3).
The equational counterpart to the cardinal preference of the in-
terviewee over the randomly generated pair of scenarios is listed
in Table B.1, where the alpha value demonstrates the cardinal dif-
(C ,C ,C ,C ,C ,C ,C ,C )
ference and Px 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 represents the scenario x status
in terms of decision factors one to eight.

Table B.1
Equational transformation of the cardinal measures.

No. Cardinal measure Weight Interaction Alpha Const.

(0,0,0,0,1,0,0,1)
P1 − + 12 [I1,7 + I2,7 + I3,7 + I4,7 − I5,7 + I6,7 ]−
1 − v7 + v8 − 5α 0
P2(0,0,0,0,1,0,1,0) =
1
[I + I2,8 + I3,8 + I4,8 − I5,8 + I6,8 ] =
2 1,8
P1(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1) − + 12 [−I1,6 + I2,6 + I3,6 + I4,6 + I5,6 + I6,7 ]−
2 − v6 + v8 2α 0
P2(1,0,0,0,0,1,0,0) =
1
2
[−I1,8 + I2,8 + I3,8 + I4,8 + I5,8 + I7,8 ] =
P1(0,0,0,0,1,0,1,0) − + 12 [I1,6 + I2,6 + I3,6 + I4,6 − I5,6 + I6,8 ]−
3 − v6 + v7 2α 0
P2(0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0) =
1
[I + I2,7 + I3,7 + I4,7 − I5,7 + I7,8 ] =
2 1,7
P1(0,0,1,0,0,0,1,1) − + 12 [I1,5 + I2,5 − I3,5 + I4,5 + I5,6 − I5,7 ]−
4 − v5 + v8 − 4α 0
P2(0,0,1,0,1,0,1,0) =
1
[I + I2,8 − I3,8 + I4,8 + I6,8 − I7,8 ] =
2 1,8
P1(0,1,0,0,0,1,1,0) − + 12 [I1,5 − I2,5 + I3,5 + I4,5 − I5,6 + I5,8 ]−
5 − v5 + v7 2α 0
P2(0,1,0,0,1,1,0,0) =
1
[I − I2,7 + I3,7 + I4,7 − I6,7 + I7,8 ] =
2 1,7
P1(0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1) − + 12 [I1,5 + I2,5 + I3,5 + I4,5 − I5,7 − I5,8 ]−
6 − v5 + v6 −α 0
P2(0,0,0,0,1,0,1,1) =
1
[I + I2,6 + I3,6 + I4,6 − I6,7 − I6,8 ] =
2 1,6
P1(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1) − + 12 [I1,4 + I2,4 + I3,4 + I4,5 + I4,6 + I4,7 ]−
7 − v4 + v8 − 5α 0
P2(0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0) =
1
[I + I2,8 + I3,8 + I5,8 + I6,8 + I7,8 ] =
2 1,8
P1(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0) − + 12 [I1,4 + I2,4 + I3,4 + I4,5 + I4,6 + I4,8 ]−
8 − v4 + v7 − 4α 0
P2(0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0) =
1
[I + I2,7 + I3,7 + I5,7 + I6,7 + I7,8 ] =
2 1,7
P1(0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1) − + 12 [I1,4 + I2,4 + I3,4 + I4,5 − I4,7 − I4,8 ]−
9 − v4 + v6 − 4α 0
P2(0,0,0,1,0,0,1,1) =
1
[I + I2,6 + I3,6 + I5,6 − I6,7 − I6,8 ] =
2 1,6
P1(0,0,1,0,1,1,0,0) − + 12 [I1,4 + I2,4 − I3,4 − I4,6 + I4,7 + I4,8 ]−
10 − v4 + v5 − 4α 0
P2(0,0,1,1,0,1,0,0) =
1
[I + I2,5 − I3,5 − I5,6 + I5,7 + I5,8 ] =
2 1,5
P1(1,0,0,0,0,1,0,1) − + 12 [−I1,3 + I2,3 + I3,4 + I3,5 − I3,6 + I3,7 ]−
11 − v3 + v8 − 5α 0
P2(1,0,1,0,0,1,0,0) =
1
2
[−I1,8 + I2,8 + I4,8 + I5,8 − I6,8 + I7,8 ] =
P1(0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0) − + 12 [I1,3 − I2,3 + I3,4 + I3,5 + I3,6 + I3,8 ]−
12 − v3 + v7 − 5α 0
P2(0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0) =
1
[I − I2,7 + I4,7 + I5,7 + I6,7 + I7,8 ] =
2 1,7
P1(0,0,0,1,0,1,0,0) − + 12 [I1,3 + I2,3 − I3,4 + I3,5 + I3,6 + I3,8 ]−
13 − v3 + v6 − 3α 0
P2(0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0) =
1
[I + I2,6 − I4,6 + I5,6 + I6,7 + I6,8 ] =
2 1,6
P1(1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0) − + 12 [−I1,3 + I2,3 + I3,4 + I3,5 + I3,6 + I3,8 ]−
14 − v3 + v5 − 3α 0
P2(1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0) =
1
2
[−I1,5 + I2,5 + I4,5 + I5,6 + I5,7 + I5,8 ] =
P1(1,0,0,1,0,1,0,0) − + 12 [−I1,3 + I2,3 + I3,5 − I3,6 + I3,7 + I3,8 ]−
15 − v3 + v4 −α 0
P2(1,0,1,0,0,1,0,0) =
1
2
[−I1,4 + I2,4 + I4,5 − I4,6 + I4,7 + I4,8 ] =
P1(0,0,1,0,0,0,0,1) − + 12 [I1,2 − I2,3 + I2,4 + I2,5 + I2,6 + I2,7 ]−
16 − v2 + v8 − 5α 0
P2(0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0) =
1
[I − I3,8 + I4,8 + I5,8 + I6,8 + I7,8 ] =
2 1,8
P1(1,0,0,0,0,0,1,1) − + 12 [−I1,2 + I2,3 + I2,4 + I2,5 + I2,6 − I2,8 ]−
17 − v2 + v7 − 5α 0
P2(1,1,0,0,0,0,0,1) =
1
2
[−I1,7 + I3,7 + I4,7 + I5,7 + I6,7 − I7,8 ] =
P1(0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0) − + 12 [I1,2 + I2,3 + I2,4 + I2,5 − I2,7 + I2,8 ]−
18 − v2 + v6 − 5α 0
P2(0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0) =
1
[I + I3,6 + I4,6 + I5,6 − I6,7 + I6,8 ] =
2 1,6
P1(0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0) − + 12 [I1,2 + I2,3 − I2,4 + I2,6 + I2,7 + I2,8 ]−
19 − v2 + v5 − 5α 0
P2(0,1,0,1,0,0,0,0) =
1
[I + I3,5 − I4,5 + I5,6 + I5,7 + I5,8 ] =
2 1,5
P1(0,0,0,1,0,0,1,0) − + 12 [I1,2 + I2,3 + I2,5 + I2,6 − I2,7 + I2,8 ]−
20 − v2 + v4 − 5α 0
P2(0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0) =
1
[I + I3,4 + I4,5 + I4,6 − I4,7 + I4,8 ] =
2 1,4
P1(1,0,1,1,0,0,0,0) − + 12 [−I1,2 − I2,4 + I2,5 + I2,6 + I2,7 + I2,8 ]−
21 − v2 + v3 −α 0
P2(1,1,0,1,0,0,0,0) =
1
2
[−I1,3 − I3,4 + I3,5 + I3,6 + I3,7 + I3,8 ] =
P1(0,1,0,0,1,0,0,1) − + 12 [−I1,2 + I1,3 + I1,4 − I1,5 + I1,6 + I1,7 ]−
22 − v1 + v8 3α 0
P2(1,1,0,0,1,0,0,0) =
1
2
[−I2,8 + I3,8 + I4,8 − I5,8 + I6,8 + I7,8 ] =
P1(0,0,0,0,1,1,1,0) − + 12 [I1,2 + I1,3 + I1,4 − I1,5 − I1,6 + I1,8 ]−
23 − v1 + v7 α 0
P2(1,0,0,0,1,1,0,0) =
1
[I + I3,7 + I4,7 − I5,7 − I6,7 + I7,8 ] =
2 2,7

(continued on next page)

 P. Pourhejazy, J. Sarkis and Q. Zhu / Expert Systems With Applications 119 (2019) 272–288 287

Table B.1 (continued)

No. Cardinal measure Weight Interaction Alpha Const.

(0,0,0,1,0,1,0,0)
P1 − + 12 [−I1,2 + I1,3 − I1,4 + I1,5 + I1,7 + I1,8 ]−
24 − v1 + v6 2α 0
P2(1,0,0,1,0,0,0,0) =
1
2
[−I2,6 + I3,6 − I4,6 + I5,6 + I6,7 + I6,8 ] =
P1(0,0,0,1,1,0,1,0) − + 12 [I1,2 + I1,3 − I1,4 + I1,6 − I1,7 + I1,8 ]−
25 − v1 + v5 2α 0
P2(1,0,0,1,0,0,1,0) =
1
[I + I3,5 − I4,5 + I5,6 − I5,7 + I5,8 ] =
2 2,5
P1(0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0) − + 12 [I1,2 + I1,3 − I1,5 + I1,6 + I1,7 + I1,8 ]−
26 − v1 + v4 − 3α 0
P2(1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0) =
1
[I + I3,4 − I4,5 + I4,6 + I4,7 + I4,8 ] =
2 2,4
P1(0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0) − + 12 [I1,2 − I1,4 + I1,5 + I1,6 + I1,7 + I1,8 ]−
27 − v1 + v3 2α 0
P2(1,0,0,1,0,0,0,0) =
1
[I − I3,4 + I3,5 + I3,6 + I3,7 + I3,8 ] =
2 2,3
P1(0,1,0,0,0,0,1,1) − + 12 [I1,3 + I1,4 + I1,5 + I1,6 − I1,7 − I1,8 ]−
28 − v1 + v2 − 3α 0
P2(1,0,0,0,0,0,1,1) =
1
[I + I2,4 + I2,5 + I2,6 − I2,7 − I2,8 ] =
2 2,3
v1 + v2 +
v3 + v4 +
29 1
v5 + v6 +
v7 + v8 =
P1(0,1,0,0,0,1,1,0) −
30 v6 − 12 [I1,6 − I2,6 + I3,6 + I4,6 + I5,6 − I6,7 + I6,8 ] = 3α 0
P2(0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0) =
P1(1,0,1,1,0,1,1,1) −
31 v1 − 12 [I1,2 − I1,3 − I1,4 + I1,5 − I1,6 − I1,7 − I1,8 ] = 2α 0
P2(0,0,1,1,0,1,1,1) =
P1(0,0,0,1,0,1,1,0) −
32 v4 − 12 [I1,4 + I2,4 + I3,4 + I4,5 − I4,6 − I4,7 + I4,8 ] = 5α 0
P2(0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0) =
P1(1,0,0,0,0,0,1,0) −
33 v1 − 12 [I1,2 + I1,3 + I1,4 + I1,5 + I1,6 − I1,7 + I1,8 ] = 2α 0
P2(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0) =
P1(0,0,1,1,0,0,1,1) −
34 v7 − 12 [I1,7 + I2,7 − I3,7 − I4,7 + I5,7 + I6,7 − I7,8 ] = 4α 0
P2(0,0,1,1,0,0,0,1) =
P1(0,0,0,1,0,1,0,1) −
35 v4 − 12 [I1,4 + I2,4 + I3,4 + I4,5 − I4,6 + I4,7 − I4,8 ] = 4α 0
P2(0,0,0,0,0,1,0,1) =
P1(1,0,0,1,1,0,0,1) −
36 v1 − 12 [I1,2 + I1,3 − I1,4 − I1,5 + I1,6 + I1,7 − I1,8 ] = 2α 0
P2(0,0,0,1,1,0,0,1) =
P1(0,1,0,1,0,1,0,0) −
37 v4 − 12 [I1,4 − I2,4 + I3,4 + I4,5 − I4,6 + I4,7 + I4,8 ] = 4α 0
P2(0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0) =

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