Strategic Alliance Pattern Evaluation Model for Taiwan’s Machine Tool Industry: A Hierarchical DEMATEL Method

The worldwide machine tool market is anticipated to reach a value of USD 68.9 billion by 2021, from USD 65.6 billion in 2020. This projection is based on the progressive production drop within the car industry, which is the largest customer of machine devices, and supply chain disruption. The machine tool industry in Taiwan faces a severe challenge and has been unobtrusively experiencing an inner reshuffling and innovative transformation. The developing strategic alliances reflect a basic endeavor by numerous firms to improve their specialized capabilities. This study applied the DEMATEL, a suitable method for gathering group knowledge to form a structural model and visualize the casual relationship between subsystems through a casual diagram, revealing that the causal relationships between measurement criteria and the proposed model can provide a viable assessment of the alliance with satisfactory criteria that fit the decision-makers requirements, especially when the assessment criteria are various and interrelated. Financial resources were the strongest factor within the strategic behavior dimension (D1), whereas the minimize manufacturing cost was the foremost basic determinant in the cost perspective (D2). The specialists also demonstrated that obtaining dominant technology was a determinative component within organizational learning (D3). This paper offers proposals for government authorities to plan a machine tools industry strategy for Taiwan and for companies to formulate business directions for long-run advancement.