A fuzzy linguistic method for evaluating collaboration satisfaction of NPD team using mutual-evaluation information

Collaboration satisfaction of new product development (NPD) team is a key factor that affects the performance of team. The evaluation of collaboration satisfaction is a useful work for managers to control the operational process of NPD team so as to promote the performance. This paper investigates a fuzzy linguistic method for evaluating collaboration satisfaction of NPD team. The concept of collaboration satisfaction of NPD team is deduced and the collaborative working relationship between members is described. A research perspective is then proposed, i.e., collaboration satisfaction of NPD team can be measured by mutual satisfaction of members. After that. we construct an evaluation hierarchy with two perspectives and extending criteria. With respect to each criterion, the mutual-evaluation matrix with linguistic terms is obtained from mutual evaluation of members based on working relationship. A fuzzy linguistic approach based on 2-tuple linguistic representation model is proposed to evaluate collaboration satisfaction of NPD team. Finally, an example is used to demonstrate the potential of the proposed method. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.