Performance Appraisal of Research and Development Projects Value-Chain for Complex Products and Systems: The Fuzzy Three-Stage DEA Approach

The purpose of the current research is to provide a performance appraisal system capable of considering the value chain network structure of research and development (R&D) projects for Complex products and systems (CoPS) under uncertainty of data. Therefore, in order to achieve this goal, a network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) approach and the possibilistic programming to provide a new fuzzy network data envelopment analysis (FNDEA) approach have been utilized. It is worth noting that the value chain structure is considered in three phases: research and development, manufacturing and testing and finally operations. Finally, the proposed research approach was implemented using data from 10 Research and Development projects for complex systems and products in Iran and the results indicate the capability and applicability of the proposed approach of fuzzy three-stage data envelopment analysis.Keywords: Research and Development (R&D) Project, Complex Products and Systems (CoPS), Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA), Value-Chain, Uncertainty.