Assessing key performance indicators in the shipbuilding industry; an MCDM approach

A series of countries have focused on shipbuilding public policies, as it is commonly considered a deliberate industry and influences employment levels in many regions. Establishing key performance indicators can be a challenge to shipbuilding policymakers. This paper suggests an approach to this issue, based on three different MCDM techniques: the fuzzy DEMATEL, the Fuzzy ANP, and the MOORA. This approach makes it achievable to estimate performance and competitiveness, considering 25 different variables comprising four different viewpoints of a balanced scorecard approach. These dimensions include finance, customer, internal process, and learning and growth aspects. The methodology is applied to the analysis of the active shipyards of the Bay of Bengal Basin countries. Our main findings indicate that shipyards which are effective in ‘customer’ variables perform higher performance, while variables constituting the ‘learning and growth’ dimension demonstrate lower impact on it. Additionally, the dimensions of ‘finance’ and ‘customer’ show uttered impacts on the other dimensions, while ‘learning and growth’ has no impact on the other perspectives of the balanced scorecard. Through this methodology, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers might acquire a penetrating overview into the drivers of the global shift in shipbuilding industry.