Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Making for Sustainable Manufacturing
Summary
Fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) has emerged as a pivotal framework for guiding sustainable manufacturing by reconciling economic, environmental and social imperatives under uncertainty. Traditional decision tools often struggle to accommodate the vagueness inherent in expert judgements, imprecise data and interdependent criteria. Fuzzy set theory addresses this challenge by representing qualitative assessments—such as risk perceptions or environmental impact scores—as membership functions rather than fixed values. By integrating fuzzy sets with hierarchical or network-based structures, decision makers can capture both the relative importance of criteria and their complex interactions. Applications range from supplier selection and material choice to process-parameter optimisation and barrier analysis. For example, fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) has been employed to prioritise green manufacturing obstacles, while fuzzy versions of Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) enable ranking of alloys or machining parameters against sustainability targets. Advances in automated weighting and entropy-based integration further reduce reliance on singular expert opinions, offering a systematic and transparent route to low-carbon process design. As industries pursue net-zero goals, fuzzy MCDM stands out for its adaptability, enabling practitioners to explore trade-offs, perform sensitivity analyses and derive robust, data-informed strategies that balance productivity with planetary boundaries.
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Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Making for Sustainable Manufacturing publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in fuzzy multi-criteria decision making for sustainable manufacturing across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Fuzzy set: A mathematical construct allowing elements to have degrees of membership, used to model vagueness in qualitative assessments.
Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM): A suite of techniques for evaluating and ranking alternatives against multiple, often conflicting, criteria.
Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP): An extension of AHP that incorporates fuzzy numbers to express uncertainty in pairwise comparisons.
TOPSIS: Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution, a method ranking options based on their distance from ideal and nadir solutions.
Entropy weighting: An objective approach to determine criterion weights by measuring the information content or variability of data.
References
- Modelling of green manufacturing barriers using a survey-integrated decision-making approach. Reports in Mechanical Engineering (2023).
- Automatically weighted high-resolution mapping of multi-criteria decision analysis for sustainable manufacturing systems. Journal of Cleaner Production (2020).
- Optimizing sustainable machining for magnesium alloys: a comparative study of GRA and TOPSIS. Cogent Engineering (2024).
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