A peer IF-TOPSIS based decision support system for packaging machine selection

• The paper proposes a peer-based modification to intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making with TOPSIS.
• A peer voting procedure supports the achievement of a wider consensus.
• IFWA operator is adopted to aggregate the opinions on the relevance of decision makers.
• IFWA is also used to aggregate the opinions on the importance of criteria and alternatives.
• The method is applied to the selection of a packaging machine in food industry.

Selecting the appropriate manufacturing machine is a very important and complex problem for firms which usually have to deal with both qualitative and quantitative criteria and involve different decision makers whose knowledge is often vague and imprecise.This paper proposes a peer-based modification to intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making with TOPSIS method (peer IF-TOPSIS) and applies it to a packaging machine selection problem. Intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging (IFWA) operator has been selected both to obtain the group opinion on the relevance of the single decision makers and to aggregate individual opinions of decision makers for rating the importance of criteria and alternatives.A case study illustrates the application of the modified IF-TOPSIS method in order to select a Vertical Form Fill and Seal (VFFS) for Double Square Bottom Bag (DSBB) machine in food packaging.