New Product Idea Selection in the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation: A Fuzzy Best-Worst Method and Group Decision-Making Process

Shui Ming Li, Felix T. S. Chan, Yung Po Tsang and Hoi Yan Lam
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Shui Ming Li: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Felix T. S. Chan: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Yung Po Tsang: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Hoi Yan Lam: Department of Supply Chain and Information Management, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: New product development (NPD) is essential to most business organizations to create new values and protect existing values for maintaining high profitability and sustainability. However, the success of NPD projects is deemed to be difficult and challenging owing to high organizational complexity, uncertain business environment, and time-critical innovation. Under the smart manufacturing paradigm, NPD is an active research area to establish effective measures through the adoption of systematic approaches so as to facilitate idea management in the fuzzy front end for the product innovation. In this paper, the domain of new product idea selection is focused on and enhanced by means of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach, in which multiple criteria and sub-criteria can be considered in the selection process. Among a number of MCDM approaches, the fuzzy set theory and best-worst method (BWM) are integrated as the fuzzy BWM in this study to structure the new product idea selection process under a group decision-making process. The hierarchy structure for the new product idea selection is also established to consider the perspectives of finance, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, and sustainability. Overall speaking, this study contributes to the field of NPD through overcoming the new product idea selection problem, while the group decision-making process is incorporated into the fuzzy BWM.

Keywords: new product development; idea selection; fuzzy set; multi-criteria decision-making; best worst method; group decision-making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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