Multi-objective service selection and scheduling with linguistic preference in cloud manufacturing

Service management in cloud manufacturing (CMfg), especially the service selection and scheduling (SSS) problem has aroused general attention due to its broad industrial application prospects. Due to the diversity of CMfg services, SSS usually need to take into account multiple objectives in terms of time, cost, quality, and environment. As one of the keys to solving multi-objective problems, the preference information of decision maker (DM) is less considered in current research. In this paper, linguistic preference is considered, and a novel two-phase model based on a desirable satisfying degree is proposed for solving the multi-objective SSS problem with linguistic preference. In the first phase, the maximum comprehensive satisfying degree is calculated. In the second phase, the satisfying solution is obtained by repeatedly solving the model and interaction with DM. Compared with the traditional model, the two-phase is more effective, which is verified in the calculation experiment. The proposed method could offer useful insights which help DM balance multiple objectives with linguistic preference and promote sustainable development of CMfg.