An approach to partner selection in virtual enterprises based on grey relational analysis

Virtual enterprise (VE) is a new type of cooperation mode and has attracted considerable attention in the global manufacturing environment. Success of the VE is highly dependent on participators, and thus selection of partners becomes a crucial issue. Partner selection can be considered as a multi-attribute decision-making problem involving variable criteria and a large number of alternatives. However, decision makers are usually uncertain of their preferences owing to changeable types of criteria and incomplete information on candidates. Therefore, an integrated approach is presented in this paper. First, a decision matrix is flexibly established according to the requirements, and then attribute weights of the decision matrix are calculated using the combination weighting method. Subsequently, the preference-order of candidates is provided to enable decision makers to choose suitable partners using grey relational analysis. Finally, an illustrative example is used to explain an application of the proposed approach.