Uncertainty in Partner Selection for Virtual Enterprises

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.