An extended TODIM multi-criteria group decision making method for green supplier selection in interval type-2 fuzzy environment

With the increasing economic globalization and intensification of market competition, green supply chain management (GSCM), as a new management mode to pursue both economic benefits and the coordinated of environment sustainable development, has become highly relevant topic in modern enterprise production operation management. The green supplier evaluation and selection is the essential core of the GSCM, which can directly impact the manufacturer's performance. The green supplier selection can be regarded as a multiple criteria group decision making (MCGDM) problem that involves many conflict evaluation criteria, both being of qualitative and quantitative nature. Due to the increasing complexity and uncertainty of social economic environment, some evaluations of criteria are not adequately represented by numerical assessments and type-1 fuzzy sets (T1FSs). In addition, decision makers (DMs) usually do not exhibit complete rationality under many practical decision situations. In this paper, we extend the TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese of interactive and multi-criteria decision making) technique to solve MCGDM problems within the context of interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FSs) and present its application to green supplier selection problem. First, we introduce a new distance based on the fuzzy logic and a-cuts of the IT2FSs. Then, an extended novel TODIM method based on prospect theory to solve MCGDM problem under IT2FSs environment is developed. Finally, a green supplier selection example is provided to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is carried out with the aid of granular computing and the comparative analysis with TOPSIS technique. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.