A fuzzy DEA/AR approach to the selection of flexible manufacturing systems

Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) offers opportunities for manufacturers to improve their technology, competitiveness, and profitability through a highly efficient and focused approach to manufacturing effectiveness. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been utilized as a multiple criteria tool for evaluation of FMSs. The concept of the assurance region (AR) is restricting the ratio of any two weights to some range to avoid the evaluated alternatives from ignoring or relying too much on any criterion in evaluation. In this paper, we develop a fuzzy DEA/AR method that is able to evaluate the performance of FMS alternatives when the input and output data are represented as crisp and fuzzy data. Based on Zadeh's extension principle, a pair of two-level mathematical programs is formulated to calculate the lower and upper bounds of the fuzzy efficiency score of the alternatives. We transform this pair of two-level mathematical programs into a pair of conventional one-level DEA/AR method to evaluate the FMS performance. An example illustrates the application of the proposed methodology. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.