Sustainable symbiotic partner selection with fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making methods: A case study in the cable industry

The manufacturing industry has been one of the cornerstone elements of society from the past to the present. The raw materials and processes used play a vital role in shaping essential factors of life. However, the growing demand for production that comes with the expansion and development of industries leads to the depletion of natural resources and an increase in waste production. This situation highlights the necessity for many significant industries to be adapted to an industrial symbiosis network and underscores the importance of symbiotic partnerships. In this study, the importance weights for sustainable symbiosis network criteria were calculated, and potential business partners in various industries were evaluated. Evaluation criteria were determined based on the literature and expert opinions, presenting a general symbiotic framework. The listed five main criteria and 36 sub-criteria were assessed by experts using linguistic expressions defined in a fuzzy global set with interval values, and they were weighted using the Fuzzy LOPCOW method. As a result of the evaluations, the importance weights of the criteria were calculated using the Fuzzy LOPCOW method. The calculated criteria weights were integrated as inputs in the sector ranking phase using interval-valued fuzzy numbers in the Fuzzy COBRA, Fuzzy MAIRCA, Fuzzy WASPAS, and Fuzzy TOPSIS methods. At the end of the study, taking into consideration the results of all methods, a consensus ranking was obtained using the Borda methods.