An interactive meta-goal programming-based decision analysis methodology to support collaborative manufacturing

Small and Medium Manufacturing Enterprises (SMMEs) show increasing interest in collaborative manufacturing. Since, collaborative manufacturing enables SMMEs to collaboratively, deliver total solutions to globally distributed customers in a highly competitive manner. Engaging in collaborative manufacturing however has been identified as a challenging task for most SMMEs. The complexity of the collaborative decision-making processes impels that challenge to the SMMEs. Thus the focus of this paper is to propose an Interactive Meta-Goal Programming (IMGP)-based decision analysis methodology to help SMMEs overcome this challenge. A major contribution is the improvement of the interaction interface between decision-makers and a Goal Programming decision model. Our methodology enables every functional entity involved in a collaborative manufacturing decision problem to individually analyse and propose its uniquely desired local goals for the concerned decision, and facilitates the application of different prioritised goal clustering schemes to all proposed goals in order to accurately convey the decision-makers’ preferences. Thirdly, meta-goals are used to manipulate the degree of attainment for the prioritised goals. A hypothetical example is provided to illustrate the application of this methodology.