Uncertainty in Partner Selection for Virtual Enterprises

Abstract

Abstract.A virtual enterprise (VE) is a temporary organization that pools the core competencies of its member enterprises and exploits fast changing market opportunities. The success of such an organization is strongly dependent on its composition, and the selection of partners becomes therefore a crucial issue. This problem is particularly difficult because of the uncertainties related to information, market dynamics, customer expectations and technology speed up. In this paper we propose an integrated approach to rank alternative VE configurations in business environments with uncertainty, using an extension of the TOPSIS method for fuzzy data, improved through the use of a stochastic multiobjective tabu search meta-heuristic. Preliminary computational results clearly demonstrate the potential of this approach for practical application.

Stochastic partner selection for virtual enterprises: a chance-constrained approach

“…The algorithm developed in this work is an evolution of a previous model described in Crispim and De Sousa (2009). This model has been adapted to a chance constraint programming approach and uses a 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic representation.…”

“…In the first (search) phase of the procedure, a directional search has been introduced in the TS algorithm (Crispim and De Sousa 2009), as a way to generate a good approximation of the set of Pareto solutions, hopefully not neglecting any region of the search space. This mechanism improves the ability to generate all available non-dominated solutions and is relatively easy to implement and apply.…”