Embedding Fuzzy Criteria in Request-for-Quote Automated Procurement Processes

The information-level integration of suppliers in manufacturing processes becomes a critical requirement in mass customization cycles, where the increasing wealth of product variants may force the production of units of size one. As a consequence, transactional procurement activities should be carried out with the help of flexible automated support tools, in order to adjust production costs, qualities and delivery rates. Request-for-quote (RFQ) scenarios in transactional procurement activities can be automated with current standards-enabled asynchronous business integration software frameworks, by using general-purpose message-passing mechanisms. Nonetheless, this automation leads to winning-quote selection criteria that could be considered too rigid in some cases, especially when using compensatory decision-making models. In this paper, we describe how simple fuzzy criteria – described through linguistic labels – can be integrated in the RFQ process to enable more flexible requisition specification and selection rules, and how existing business integration XML specifications can be extended to include that fuzzy information.