The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) has been used to solve numerous multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems, where real numbers are utilised in defining linguistic variables. Although the DEMATEL has shown its success in solving many decision-making problems, researchers have not fully understood how the DEMATEL works on nonreal-number linguistic variables.

The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) has been used to solve numerous multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems, where real numbers are utilised in defining linguistic variables. Although the DEMATEL has shown its success in solving many decision-making problems, researchers have not fully understood how the DEMATEL works on nonreal-number linguistic variables. Recent discovery of single-valued neutrosophic sets (SVNSs) can offer a new method to solve decision-making problems, where three memberships of SVNSs are used to define experts’ linguistic judgment. This paper aims to propose a novel MCDM method, where SVNSs and the DEMATEL are fully utilised. Different from the DEMATEL, which directly utilises real numbers, this proposed method introduces SVNSs to better deal with truth, indeterminacy, and falsity in solving MCDM problem.

Lean systems which provide the elimination of waste and increase productivity in both manufacturing and service systems are highly desired by the companies. Designing a lean system requires enormous amount of efforts and is time consuming unless the right steps are followed. The first step of lean implementation is the assessment of leanness which determines the status quo of the existing system with respect to leanness. In searching of a comprehensive evaluation method, this study aims to propose a leanness assessment methodology which is able to aid company’s lean transformation. This study mainly differs from the existing studies by taking into account a wide range of lean indicators with a comprehensively designed questionnaire and evaluating leanness via neutrosophic DEMATEL (The Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) based scoring structure. The proposed methodology is applied in three companies. Moreover, sensitivity analysis concerning metrics and comparison with classic DEMATEL are performed.

Information management is a common paradigm in modern decision-making. A wide range of decision-making techniques have been proposed in the literature to model complex business and engineering processes. In this Special Issue, 16 selected and peer-reviewed original research articles contribute to business information management in various current real-world problems by proposing crisp or uncertain multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) models and techniques, mostly including multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) approaches, in addition to a single paper proposing an interactive multi-objective decision-making (MODM) approach. Particular attention is devoted to information aggregation operators—65% of papers dealt with this item. The topics of this Special Issue gained attention in Europe and Asia. A total of 48 authors from seven countries contributed to this Issue. The papers are mainly concentrated in three application areas: supplier selection and rational order allocation, the evaluation and selection of goods or facilities, and personnel selection/partner selection. A number of new approaches are proposed that are expected to attract great interest from the research community.

This book offers a comprehensive reference guide to customer-oriented product design and intelligence. It provides readers with the necessary intelligent tools for designing customer-oriented products in contexts characterized by incomplete information or insufficient data, where classical product design approaches cannot be applied. The respective chapters, written by prominent researchers, explain a wealth of both basic and advanced concepts including fuzzy QFD, fuzzy FMEA, the fuzzy Kano model, fuzzy axiomatic design, fuzzy heuristics-based design, conjoint analysis-based design, and many others. To foster reader comprehension, all chapters include relevant numerical examples or case studies. Taken together, they form an excellent reference guide for researchers, lecturers, and postgraduate students pursuing research on customer-oriented product design. Moreover, by extending all the main aspects of classical customer-oriented product design to its intelligent and fuzzy counterparts, the book presents a dynamic snapshot of the field that is expected to stimulate new directions, ideas, and developments.

The theme of this work is to present an axiomatic definition of divergence measure for single-valued neutrosophic sets (SVNSs). The properties of the proposed divergence measure have been studied. Further, we develop a novel technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method for solving single-valued neutrosophic multi-criteria decision-making with incomplete weight information. Finally, a numerical example is presented to verify the proposed approach and to present its effectiveness and practicality.