Fuzzy QFD for Distribution Center Location Evaluation in Catering Service of High Speed Railway

Catering service of high speed railway (CSHR) is an important part of railway passenger service. This paper suggests a new use of Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment (F-QFD) for distribution center locations evaluation in CSHR (DCLP-CSHR) as a preliminary step for distribution network design. Fuzzy sets concept is incorporated to deal with imprecise nature of the linguistic judgments of decision makers, so first a measure for uncertainty in F-QFD is proposed. Secondly, two-phrase F-QFD process is presented to address distribution center location evaluation. The process is designed based on the principle of minimum uncertainty, Lambda-Max Method and Non-Linear Programming Models are incorporated in the two phrases. Finally, a numerical example in the context of the Harbin-Dalian high-speed rail is implemented. Our approach presents a systematic way to address DCLP-CSHR. A comparison between the proposed process and other methods is also done, showing that the important rates obtained by our method deliver less uncertain information than other methods’ results do.