Comparação entre métodos hesitant fuzzy linguistic VIKOR no contexto de seleção de fornecedores

Abstract

The selection of suppliers is a decision-making process that strongly influences the performance of organizations inserted in supply chains. It can be characterized as a multicriteria problem, complex and subject to uncertainty, which depends on many factors and can count on the hesitation of human evaluation. To deal with the difficulty of selecting suppliers, using multicriteria decision methods (MCDM) is one of the possible approaches. One of these methods is the Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic VIKOR (HFLVIKOR), which combines the possibility of using one or more linguistic terms to evaluate alternatives concerning the criteria (depending on the Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets approach used) with the ordering obtained with the VIKOR method. Given the gap in previous comparative studies involving this method, this study’s objective was to compare two versions of the HFL-VIKOR method considering the context of supplier selection. The methods compared were selected from a systematic literature review that analyzed 57 studies on Hesitant Fuzzy VIKOR approaches. Then, computational modeling and applying the methods were performed on a real problem and in eight simulated scenarios. The comparison considered the differences and similarities of the methods regarding the structure of the algorithms, results obtained in the actual application and simulations, adequacy to group decision making, effort to collect data and flexibility of judgment, computational complexity, and ability to model uncertainty and hesitation. While the EHFLVIKOR method is more appropriate when decision-makers have more significant hesitation, the PDHFLTS method considers all decision-maker’s evaluations, including those that overlap. The EHFLVIKOR method was more consistent because it maintained the exact ordering and compromise solution in the actual application and simulated scenarios’. In addition, the EHFLVIKOR method can be used in larger companies with more than one representative per functional area involved in the selection of suppliers. Despite the differences, it is concluded that both methods are suitable for dealing with situations of uncertainty and hesitation, capable of dealing with groups of decision-makers, requiring low effort in data collection, and allowing the expression of evaluations flexibly. The results of this work can help managers and academics select an appropriate method to support the selection of suppliers and contribute to understanding the characteristics of HFL-VIKOR methods.