A Comprehensive Fuzzy Decision-Making Method for Minimizing Completion Time in Manufacturing Process in Supply Chains

Abstract

In manufacturing firms, there are many factors that can affect product completion time in production lines. However, in a real production environment, such factors are uncertain and increase the adverse effects on product completion time. This research focuses on the role of internal factors in small- and medium-scale supply chains in developing countries, enhancing product completion time during the manufacturing process in fuzzy conditions. In the first step of this research, a list of factors was found clustered into six main groups: technology, human resources, machinery, material, facility design, and social factors. In the next step, fuzzy weights of each group factor were determined by a fuzzy inference system to reflect the uncertainty of the factors in utilizing product completion time. Then, a hybrid fuzzy–TOPSIS-based heuristic is proposed to generate and select the best production alternative. The outcomes showed that the proposed method could generate and select the alternative with a 10.13% lower product completion time. The findings also indicated that using the proposed fuzzy method will cause less minimum variance compared to the crisp mode.

Keywords

• supply chain management
• uncertainty
• hybrid fuzzy–TOPSIS heuristic
• product completion time