Evaluating sustainable advantages in productivity with a systematic procedure

All factories strive to enhance productivity. In addition, in some industries, the competition is becoming fierce. To survive, a firm should have sustainable advantages in productivity. To this end, a systematic procedure is presented in this study to evaluate the competitiveness and sustainable advantages of a factory’s productivity. The proposed methodology considers improvements in productivity as learning processes, which can then be used to estimate future productivity. In this study, uncertainty in productivity is modeled with a fuzzy number. After comparing estimated productivity values in some competitive regions, the midterm competitiveness can be evaluated. Sustainable advantages in productivity can be assessed by observing the trends in the midterm competitiveness. A practical example is presented to illustrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.