A Fuzzy-AHP Method for Selection Best Apparel Item to Start-Up with New Garment Factory: A Case Study in Bangladesh

The readymade garments industry is rapidly growing and now it is the single highest export earner for Bangladesh. This business sector becomes an attractive investment destination to the country’s new young entrepreneurs upcoming due to its cheaper labor cost, lower investment cost, availability of resources, governments support, etc. than the other sectors. However, many other factors are often needed to consider in investing in this garments sectors. Again, in garments sectors, there is a wide range of apparel items like shirts, trousers, jackets, sweaters, etc. options that are available to invest. Different types of apparel items demand different types of resource requirements, diverse level of capital investment, operator’s skills, and it is also related to the many other factors. Again, all the investors are not in same stand points according to their business handling capabilities, capitals in hand, business locations and so many other aspects. This paper proposes a methodology for selection best apparel item among different alternatives that will provide a decision support to the investors in opening a new garment factory. The proposed methodology is based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) under fuzzy environment. The approaches allow the decision maker to use expert’s judgment in the form of linguistic expression in the evaluation process. In the application of proposed methodology, the best apparel item is selected for opening a garment factory in Bangladesh at present conditions.

Keywords:

Fuzzy-AHP , Multi-criteria decision making , Garments , Product prioritization