Service Station Evaluation Problem in Catering Service of High-Speed Railway: A Fuzzy QFD Approach Based on Evidence Theory

Catering Service of High-Speed Railway (CSHR) starts at suppliers, includes distribution centers and service stations in cities, and ends at cabinets in high-speed trains. In Distribution System Design (DSD) Problem for CSHR, it is critical to evaluate the alternatives of service stations, which is termed as Service Station Evaluation Problem in Catering Service of High-speed Railway (SSEP-CSHR). As a preparation work for DSD, SSEP-CSHR needs to be solved without detailed information and being accompanied with uncertainty. Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment (F-QFD) has been given in the literatures to deal with vagueness in Facility Location Evaluation (FLE). However, SSEP-CSHR that includes identifying and evaluating stations requires not only dealing with the vague nature of assessments but also confirming them. Based on evidence theory, this paper introduces the framework to give the truth of proposition “x is A.” Then it is incorporated into a two-phase F-QFD with an approximate reasoning to enable the truth of the decisions to be measured. A case study that refers to 85 alternative stations on Chinese high-speed railway will be carried out to verify the proposed method. Analysis shows that the proposed evaluation method enhances scientific credibility of FLE and allows decision makers to express how much is known.