2

Agility evaluation using fuzzy logic

Lin, C. T.

Chiu, H.

Tseng, Y. H.

2006

154

International Journal of Production Economics

“Change” seems to be one of enterprises’ major characteristics in this new competitive era. Agile enterprise whereby an organization can change and adapt quickly to changing circumstances is increasingly viewed as a winning strategy. However, in embracing agile enterprise, there are important questions to be asked: what precisely is agility and how can it be measured? How can one assist in achieving and enhancing agility effectively? Answers to such questions are critical to the practitioners and to the theory of agile enterprise design. The foundation of agile enterprise lies in the integration of information system/technologies, people, business processes and facilities. Due to the ill-defined and vague indicators which exist within agility assessment, most measures are described subjectively by linguistic terms which are characterized by ambiguity and multi-possibility, and the conventional assessment approaches cannot suitably nor effectively handle such measurement. However, fuzzy logic provides a useful tool for dealing with decisions in which the phenomena are imprecise and vague. Thus, the novelty in the paper is development of the absolute agility index, a unique and unprecedented attempt in agility measurement, using fuzzy logic to address the ambiguity in agility evaluation. Details of the approach and a framework of a fuzzy agility evaluation will be presented. An example is also used to illustrate the approach developed.

(Lin, Chiu, & Tseng, 2006)

3

A fuzzy-logic-based decision-making approach for new product development

Büyüközkan, G.

Feyziog̃lu, O.

2004

136

International Journal of Production Economics

The managers spend most of their time to take critical decisions in each level of the organizational hierarchy. Basically, the decision process is to weight diverse alternatives each having the purpose to attain some of the desired objectives and to figure out the best solution in the complete challenging goals set. In today’s rapidly changing and highly uncertain environment, the strategic decisions have an extremely complex and fuzzy nature. In the meantime, the enterprises have tendency to appreciate the new product development (NPD) activities so as to deal with the innovation in the new economy and to fulfill the customer demands adequately. The aim of this study is then to improve the accuracy of decision-making in NPD under uncertainty. We first identify the decision points in the NPD process and the uncertainty factors affecting those points. Next, we determine the necessary decision models and techniques to help the decision makers to reduce their risks. Finally, we propose an integrated approach based on fuzzy logic to shape the decisions and illustrate with an application in software development. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

(Büyüközkan & Feyziog̃lu, 2004)