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J. Eng. Technol. Manage. 24 (2007) 366394 www.elsevier.com/locate/jengtecman

Fuzzy quality-team formation for value added auditing: A case study

Turkay Dereli, Adil Baykasoglu *, G. Sena Das
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Gaziantep, 27310 Gaziantep, Turkey Available online 22 October 2007

Abstract Value-added (quality) auditing is emerging as one of the most powerful tools for continuous quality improvement, with the introduction of the ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 19011 standards that focus team-based audits, proper auditor skills, process auditing, and effectiveness, etc. Formation of an effective quality audit team (QAT) based on the required auditor skills is therefore the initial stage of the value added auditing. QATs audit organizations at different locations with varying auditing requirements in order to evaluate an organizations own quality system (rst party part audits according to IEC9001 Clause 8.2.2). The QAT consists of a lead auditor and one or more auditors that have the required skills in varying levels for the execution of an audit. For a successful audit, the formation of a QAT is vital since each audit team must at least fulll the minimum requirements and skills needed for a specic audit. In this case study, a fuzzy mathematicalprogramming model and a solution algorithm based on simulated annealing is proposed for the formation of QATs. This is one of the rst attempts in the literature to form this kind of teams analytically. Example problems are also solved in the paper to present the application of the proposed approach. # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Auditing; Quality audit teams; Value-added audits; Team formation; Fuzzy optimization

1. Introduction 1.1. Evolution of quality management systems and auditing Quality auditing has been around for a long time and is not a new discipline, dating back to the 1960s. Unfortunately, there has been limited academic interest in the detail of the quality audit process, in spite of the popularity of quality auditing in a wide range of industries and service

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 3604383; fax: +90 3604383. E-mail address: baykasoglu@gantep.edu.tr (A. Baykasoglu). 0923-4748/$ see front matter # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jengtecman.2007.09.005

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sectors (Humphrey et al., 2000). Many organizations have encountered quality audits while they were implementing quality management systems. Countless organizations all around the world have implemented and used ISO 9000 series of generic standards to develop their quality management systems since 1987. In 1987, Technical Committee (TC) 176 set-up by International Organization for Standards (ISO) made the rst release of the ISO 9000 documents. The ISO requires that all standards are reviewed at least every 5 years to nd out if they are still applicable, require revision, or need to be withdrawn. Therefore, in 1994, TC 176 released an updated version of the ISO 9000 standard referred to as ISO 9000:1994 which was made up of three basic standards: ISO 9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003. The 1994 version of ISO 9000 revised and updated in 2000, and is now referred to as ISO 9000:2000. The main focus was to amplify top management commitment, to emphasize process approach, and to enhance customer satisfaction. ISO 9000 standard was restructured and now is composed of four key standards; ISO 9000:2000, ISO 9001:2000, ISO 9004:2000 and ISO 10011; where, ISO 9001:2000 presents requirements, ISO 9000:2000 and ISO 9004:2000 present guidelines. ISO 10011 provides also the guidelines for auditing quality management systems, which was rst released in 1990 by ISO left valid until 2001. In 2002, a draft standard ISO/DIS 19011 was released to provide guidance on the conduct of internal and external quality and/or environmental management system audits, as well as on the management of audit programs. Finally, ISO 19011 standard was released to present the guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing, in 2002. This standard replaced all of the previous standards related to auditing like ISO 10011 and ISO/DIS 19011 as well as ISO 14010. ISO 19011 is the rst standard that harmonizes the series ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 international standards for auditing, while combining ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 auditing schemes. It includes requirements for qualication of auditors and focusing on audit team (http://www.bulltek.com). ISO 9000:2000 has also an emphasis on continuous quality improvement by audit and surveillance through third-party audits (Liao et al., 2004). The audits are used to verify the compliance of quality management systems with the ISO 9000 series of standards. It is well worth pointing out that, following the introduction of ISO 9000:1994 standard, although some of the organizations have gained values and achieved continuous improvement potential, lots of the organizations have produced only some set of procedures and therefore have not added any value to their business. For some of the parties, ISO 9000:1994 has worked, while some others it has not worked. Therefore, the rate of jumping from the old version to new version ISO 9000:2000 was rather slow. Although there were a lot of causes of this slowness; non-value-added audits (i.e., purely compliance audits) are thought as one of the main reasons of this consequence. Concerns have also been raised in recent years about the usefulness of common (standard) compliance audits for continuous improvement, in consistencies of audit processes and results, and the value of compliance audits in understanding complexities of business systems (Karapetrovic and Willborn, 2001). Karapetrovic and Willborn (2001) have suggested and advocated the implementation of systems approach in auditing in order to add value to the audited organization. They argued that in a well-planned and managed audit system, competent auditors must strive to identify improvements. The quality world has focused on the auditing process and tried to nd the effective ways to improve the quality of quality auditing and concluded that only value-added audits can be employed as a continuous improvement tool. The importance of adding value during the quality management audits has been really understood by all of the related parties. Although there are several descriptions of adding value, it means basically to make something more useful or to improve something. ISO 9000:2000 describes audit as a systematic,

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independent, and documented process for obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria fullled. The most important and problematic issue in value added auditing is obviously to answer to the question how to add value? The approach to adding value is likely to be a function of the level of maturity of the organizations quality culture and the maturity of its quality management systems, with respect to the requirements of ISO 9001:2000. The details of the tips and hints given for adding value to the organizations according to their level of quality culture and the maturity of quality management systems can be found in the following URL address: http://www.bsi.org.uk/iso-tc176-sc2 (ISO & IAF). The purely compliance audits have become a routine for both the auditors and the auditee, therefore the quality audit scope has been enlarged to the areas by which the organization or the managers master their business (Pivka and Mulej, 2004). Therefore, a value-added audit includes process, management and risk assessment audits as well as the conformity audits. The companies and organizations now require value-added through value-added audits in which a holistic approach should be implemented to collect evidences rather than focusing on individual clauses of the ISO 9001:2000 standard. In a typical value-added audit, the main emphasize given to processes instead of procedures. The ISO 9001:2000 is actually a last-minute chance for the business world because it is closely related to Total Quality Management (TQM) principles and it is based on continuous improvement, system approach and process approach as well; hence it opens the door for valueadded auditing. Using this new auditing perspective, the auditors are called value-added auditors who should serve as a consultant for the audited organization. They are experts and should give assistance to the audited organization in improving their effectiveness and quality. The auditors are responsible for performing an audit, resulting in improvements of current processes in such a way that management goals are fullled. The value-added auditing approach actually represents a total paradigm shift. Instead of viewing auditors as policemen and auditing as punitive and after the fact, it stresses collaborative team effort, participatory problem solving, and proactive improvement rather then reactive corrections (Wallace, 2005). Team-based auditing is preferred on high-risk audits as well as for all audit work. ISO 9001:2000 also requires effectiveness, process auditing, proper auditor skills and team-based audits. The members in the value-added team have an expert knowledge of the audited process or service. The organization of audit plan is, of course, the preliminary stage of the value-added audits. In order to achieve the audit goals, the selection of appropriate audit team to is one of the critical stages in this organization. Adams (1999) claimed that audits are the core of an effective quality assurance program and inadequate resources (i.e. using single auditor) for such audits are the bane of quality assurance program. Effective internal control can only be achieved when everyone wants to have effective internal control and work together to achieve that goal. Team-based auditing has long been a preferred integrated audit approach. As in any cross-functional teaming effort, success is dependent on shared objectives and full participation. In todays world, however, the team audit approach should be taken to the next level, including management and staff of the area undergoing evaluation. True team audits will not only provide a more complete assessment but will also establish the criteria standards and methodology for ongoing assessment. Team audits can provide team access to the broader specialized knowledge content of its individual members, and also identify those areas where critical specialized knowledge is absent. Furthermore, given acceptance of the common goal of improving internal control, benets achieved through understanding and synergy will be far more valuable than the separation and misunderstanding that often accompany adversarial audit reports (Tongren, 2005).

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1.2. Quality auditing process and types of audits Quality is a concept that depends on many auditable factors. Evaluation is often considered as the most benecial element for ISO 9000 series quality management systems because it reveals ways to further improvement of quality and incrementally increase customer satisfaction. Evaluation is facilitated by quality audits. A quality audit (QA) is an activity, which is carried out to assess or examine a product, the process used to produce the product or the system in which the production (or service) takes place (Das, 2003). Besides, a quality audit aims to determine whether the subject of the audit is operating in compliance with the source documentation, or not. ISO 10011 denes quality audit as; a systematic and independent examination to determine whether quality activities and related results comply with planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve objectives. Fig. 1 schematizes a typical (compliance) audit process (Dereli et al., 2004). There are three basic quality audits as illustrated in Fig. 2; rst party or internal audits, second party audits and third party or external audits (Dereli et al., 2004). First party (internal) audits are conducted by an organization upon itself by its own staff. The internal auditing is dened as: an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organizations operations. It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance processes (Le Grand, 2000). As can easily be seen from its denition above, it should be noticed that the internal audits are inherently add value to the audited organization. Second party audits are conducted by a customer upon its suppliers to ascertain whether the supplier can meet the existing contractual requirements or not. Obviously, the suppliers quality system is a very important part of contractual requirements since it is directly (manufacturing, engineering, purchasing, quality control, etc.) and indirectly (marketing, inside and outside sales, etc.) responsible for the design, production, control and continued supportability of the product (Baysinger, 1997). Third party (external) audits are conducted for certication purposes, usually by certication bodies. It is an assessment of an organizations own quality system conducted by an independent, outside team of auditors. For example, ISO 9000 is a quality management system subject to third party audit. Compared to the rst and the second party audits, they are more objective since the auditors are independent. The auditor cannot provide any recommendation on how to meet the requirements of ISO 9001:2000 within a third party audit. However, the questions that the auditor

Fig. 1. The schematic representation of a typical audit process.

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Fig. 2. Types of quality audits.

asks (and the way the auditor ask those questions) can present valuable insights for the organization into how the quality management system could become more efcient and useful (ISO & IAF). The auditing schemes can also be classied into two clusters such as; non-value-added auditing (i.e. bureaucratic audits, compliance audits, etc.) and value-added auditing, respectively. Actually, all audits and all types of audits can/should add value to the auditee, however, this is unfortunately not always the case. A non-value-added approach asks What procedures do we have to write to get the ISO 9000 certication? while a value-added approach asks the question How can we use our ISO 9001:2000-based quality management system to help us to improve our business? Instead of focusing on individual clauses of ISO 9001:2000 and conformities, in value added auditing a holistic approach is adopted to evidence gathering throughout the audit. In internal audits, the auditors try to help the auditee, audited manager or employee. The help of the auditor is allowed. The auditors can give advice and also suggest changes. However, in a third party audit this would certainly generate a conict of interest, and would contravene the ISO/IEC Guide 62 requirements for the accreditation of certication bodies. Therefore, the auditor has to take great care. However, this does not mean that value added auditing can only be used for the rst party (internal) audits. There are still various situations in which the value added auditing is likely to be employed for the context of second or third-party audits. It depends on the level of maturity of the organizations quality culture and the maturity of its quality management system, with regard to the requirements of ISO 9001:2000. For instance, a value-added third-party audit should be useful (ISO & IAF):  to the certied organization  by providing information to top management regarding the organizations ability to meet strategic objectives;  by identifying problems which, if resolved, will enhance the organizations performance;  by identifying improvement opportunities and possible areas of risk;  to the organizations customers by enhancing the organizations ability to provide conforming product;  to the certication body, by improving the credibility of the third party certication process. All auditing systems are converging around the theme of value-added auditing and it is widely recognized as one of the most signicant business tools in the area of quality management

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(Hutchins, 2002). The auditors play important roles in value added audits and they are called value added auditors. The value added auditing requires therefore additional auditor skills. For example, depending upon the level of maturity of the organizations quality culture and the maturity of its quality management system, the value-added auditors (ISO & IAF);     should be sensitive to the audited organizations methodologies; be able to see to what extent they are effective in meeting the requirements; must be able to identify any systematic problem; have a clear understanding of the organizations strategic objectives, etc.

Consequently, selection or determination of the skilled auditors for the quality audit teams is becoming one of the most important and critical issues for the success of audits and for adding values to the audited organizations, effectively. Of course, the formation of such audit teams is the starting phase in building quality into value-added auditing process. 1.3. Teamwork and team-based quality auditing Teamwork is the vehicle for integrating information, technology, competence and resources based on human interactions (Kinlaw, 1991). Organizations especially those which are aware of the power and the capabilities of teams, use teams extensively as the primary means for coordinating people with diverse skills needed for a particular project. Moreover, teams are easily congured and recongured as requirements change (Chang et al., 2000). Due to these issues, management is increasingly emphasizing the importance of teams for organizational success in the modern economy (Cohen and Bailey, 1997). Teamwork is considered as the spirit of quality management. Teams are the primary unit of performance in many organizations. Katzenbach and Smith (1993) dened a team as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Many of the quality or quality-related efforts in an organization depend on teams and teamwork. These teams, who work under different names such as quality or qualityimprovement teams, usually try to improve the quality of a product/service and organizations own quality system. Although the use of teams and teamwork have been suggested to the organizations and companies for continuous improvement and problem solving efforts, the use of teamwork spirit for quality auditing was limited. Unknown to many people, there are also Quality Audit Teams (QATs) which work on improving quality in a different manner compared to the previously mentioned teams. QATs audit organizations at different locations with varying auditing requirements in order to evaluate an organizations own quality system (rst party part audits according to IEC9001 Clause 8.2.2). Such a team consists of a lead auditor and one or more auditors that have the required skills in varying levels for the execution of an audit. The size of a QAT is generally between 2 and 4 members including the lead auditor. However, a QAT can vary in size according to the size of the organization being audited. If needed, a technical expert can also be included to the QAT. The QAT is formed by the lead auditor. Usually the lead auditor heuristically forms the QAT based on the competence of the auditors and the needs/expectations of the organization that will be audited. The lead auditor should consider the following issues when selecting the members of the QAT (Goestch and Davis, 2002):

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competence of candidate auditors; the type of the organization, processes, activities, or functions being audited; the number, language skills and expertise of the auditors; any potential conict of interest between QAT members and the organization being audited; requirements of the audited organization, and of certication and accreditation bodies.

Value-added (quality) auditing is emerging as one of the most powerful tools for continuous quality improvement, with the introduction of the ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 19011 standards that require effectiveness, process auditing, proper auditor skills and team-based audits. Formation of an effective quality audit team (QAT) based on the required auditor skills is therefore the initial stage of the value addition process. When forming the QAT, understanding of the audited organizations needs is an important issue. A survey of auditors and the audited organizations in a nance industry has investigated ve attributes of the audit and the auditor: professionalism, business knowledge, risk perspective, audit planning and conduct, and reporting audit results (Gryna, 2002; Basturk, 2002; Canikyan, 2003). The results of the survey showed the audited organizations pointed out that professionalism (objectivity, knowledge of the area being audited) is three times more important that auditors did. On the other hand, the auditors pointed out that risk perspective (coverage of key areas, audit in sufcient detail) as three times more important than the audited organization. For a successful audit, the formation of the QAT is vital since each auditor in the team must not only have some basic skills like basic auditing skills and communication skills (language and the relevance of questions during the audit, etc.) but also relevant technical and management knowledge. In the light of the above discussion, it can be concluded that in a QAT, there must be a good combination of auditing skills, communication skills and technical and management knowledge. Assuming that an auditor has to have the basic auditing and communication skills, an evaluation of the auditor according to a set of skills can be carried out:  Management expertise (e.g. project management) and professionalism (Knowledge about Projects, KP).  Problem solving and decision making skills, which includes problem solving ability analytic thinking ability and knowledge on decision-making (Knowledge about Data Processing, KDP).  Technical expertise which includes the knowledge about the type of organization processes, activities or functions being audited (Knowledge about Manufacturing, KM).  Auditing expertise which includes skills related to audit planning, conducting audit, reporting audit results, language and communication skills and the relevance of questions during the audit, etc. (Auditing Skills, AS). Considering the skills listed above, QAT formation problem can be dened as, forming the appropriate QAT by matching the skills of candidate auditors with the skill requirements of an audit subject to several constraints related to cost, project and human resources. The problem is how to organize/form a QAT that will successfully perform the planned audit within the given deadline. As the organization that will be audited changes, the required skills for the audit also changes. Due to this fact, formation of the right QAT for a planned audit is an important issue for the audit performance and success.

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1.4. Literature review on team formation There is a considerable amount of literature on teams. However, the number of papers on analytical team formation is limited. Zakarian and Kusiak (1999) proposed an analytical model for the selection of multi-functional teams that uses the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method to prioritize team membership based on customer requirements or product specications. Boon and Sierksma (2003) formulated linear optimization models to headhunt or scout a new team in soccer and volleyball to enhance the quality of a team. They aimed to form the optimal teams by combining the qualities of the candidates and players with the functional requirements in order to assign the right person to the right team. Chen and Lin (2004) proposed a team member model for the formation of a multifunctional team in concurrent engineering. They used AHP and MyersBriggs type indicator to model team member characteristics. Besides these applications, some authors handled the problem in a fuzzy manner. Yaakob and Kawata (1999) evaluated workers skills and calculate workers suitability by using triangular fuzzy numbers to select the appropriate candidates for work teams in industrial environments. In another team formation study, de Korwin et al. (2002) take into account the candidate skills and utilized fuzzy set theory to calculate compatibilities of skill sets. In addition to these analytical studies, there are many studies in the literature that give guidelines and discuss social and soft factors (personalities, behaviors, communication, etc.) in forming teams (Kinlaw, 1991; Katzenbach and Smith, 1993; Dyer, 1994; Clark, 1994; Kezsbom, 1995; Sommerville and Dalziel, 1998; Buttereld and Pendegraft, 1996; Stock, 2004; Hollenbeck et al., 2004). There are several analytical studies on forming different types of teams and considerable amount of work in the eld of team constructing guidelines, observing how teams function and monitoring team performance. In spite of their wide use especially for the certication issue there has been very little work on quality audits and QATs (Adams, 1999; Dodin et al., 1998). Further, there is no analytical model in the literature on the formation of quality-related teams such as QATs. In this paper, team formation for QAT is studied and a fuzzy multiple objective optimization model for the QAT problem is developed. In the balance of the article, rst a short presentation will be given on fuzzy set theory and fuzzy ratings method. Then, the developed fuzzy model and the assumptions will be briey explained. After the introduction of the model, some examples will be presented. 2. Problem denition Given an existing auditor pool, it is desired to extract (a) one team or (b) multiple teams (Fitzpatrick, 2000) for a number of audits. The auditor pool includes candidate certicated auditors having knowledge and skills of varying levels. The skill requirements of each audit can be different. Therefore, it is always important to match the right auditors skill level with the audit task requirements (Dodin et al., 1998). Moreover, each QAT should be formed by considering the some real life constraints like the desired team size, interpersonal relations between the members of the QAT, schedule constraints of an audit and the budget available for an audit. All of these issues are reected to the proposed model either in the form of an objective function or a constraint. Among these issues, probably the most important one is the QAT members knowledge and skill levels. As stated by Katzenbach and Smith (1993) it is a mistake to ignore skills when forming a team. A team cannot get started without some minimum complement of

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skills, especially technical and functional ones (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993). That is why every team must have the right mix of skills, which meets the skill requirements for each audit. The proposed model evaluates the skill levels of each candidate auditor according to the skill requirements that are needed for the completion of each audit by using the concepts of triangular fuzzy numbers and linguistic variables. The candidate auditors in the auditor pool are described by four skill types: Knowledge about Projects (KP), Knowledge about Manufacturing (KM), Knowledge about Data Processing (KDP) and Auditing Skills (AS) and the fuzzy ratings method is used for the determination of the suitability of each candidate auditor for each audit. The fuzzy ratings method is explained in the following section. The skill suitability values are used to form the rst fuzzy objective function in the QAT formation model. Team size is another important factor, which should be considered in the QAT formation process. The team size affects the team effectiveness. As mentioned before, the size of a QAT generally varies between 2 and 4 auditors in industry. However, the number of auditors in a QAT could also be determined according to the size of the organization being audited. In the proposed QAT formation model team size constitutes the second fuzzy objective. The rest of the factors like interpersonal relations between the auditors, audit schedule, number of audits per auditor and budget limitations for each audit are modeled as hard constraints. 3. An overview of the fuzzy mathematical concepts used in the problem modeling In order to evaluate the skills of each candidate auditors according to the skill requirements of each audit, the concepts of fuzzy logic like triangular fuzzy numbers and linguistic variables are used. Fuzzy logic is a technique for dealing with sources of imprecision and uncertainty that are non-statistical in nature (Zadeh, 1965; Ross, 1995). A fuzzy set A in X is a set of ordered pairs; A fx; mA xjx 2 Xg (1)

where mA(x) is the membership function. Membership function can take values between [0, 1]. As the membership value mA(x) gets bigger, belonging of x to the fuzzy set A increases. Under a fuzzy environment, fuzzy numbers are useful in promoting the representation and the information processing (Dubois, 1978). A fuzzy set A is called triangular fuzzy number with peak (or center) a, left width a > 0 and right width b > 0 if its membership function has the following form: 8 x<a a >0 > > > > 1 a x a a x a < a (2) mA x > 1 a x a x a b > > > b > : 0 x>a b and denoted as x = (a, a, b). A triangular fuzzy number with a center may be seen as a fuzzy quantity x is approximately equal to a. Algebraic operations on fuzzy numbers can be dened by using the extension principle. In this paper, some algebraic operations developed by Dubois (1978) are used. When addition and subtraction are applied to triangular fuzzy numbers the results for these operations will be again triangular fuzzy numbers. However, when multiplication is applied to triangular fuzzy numbers

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the result will approximately be a triangular fuzzy number. For two triangular fuzzy numbers x1 = (a1, b1, c1) and x2 = (a2, b2, c2) Extended addition is equal to : x1 x2 a1 a2 ; b1 b2 ; c1 c2 Extended multiplication is equal to : x1 x2 a1 a2 ; b1 b2 ; c1 c2 (3)

where a1 ! 0, a2 ! 0. In the proposed model, linguistic variables are used to evaluate each of the candidate auditors. A linguistic variable differs from a numerical variable in that its values are not numbers, but words or sentences in natural or articial language (Zadeh, 1975). The main reason behind the use of these variables is the difculty of expressing skill degrees as discrete values. These variables reect the decision-makers (lead auditor) assessments/judgments about candidate auditors and minimum skill requirements (weights of the skills) of each audit. In this paper, the triangular fuzzy numbers are employed and assigned to linguistic variables. 3.1. Fuzzy ratings method In this study, fuzzy ratings method is used to obtain the skill suitability of each auditor in the auditor pool. This method is used in a situation that does not allow a more structured decision approach. Such problems are usually characterized by the lack of objective and reliable information. The method can be explained as follows (Chen, 1996). Suppose a number of alternatives, which are denoted as A1, A2, . . ., Am. The aspects that inuence all the alternatives are identied as a1, a2, . . ., an. Then for a given alternative Ai, a rating, denoted as rij, assesses the relative merit of aspect aj. Furthermore, the relative importance of each aspect is assessed by a weighting coefcient say w j for aspect aj. Then, the alternative Ai receives the weighted average rating; Pn j1 w j r i j r i Pn (4) j1 w j In order to simplify the implementation, the weighted average will not consider the extended division. The revised form is given by;
n X j1

ri

w j ri j

(5)

In this method, the ratings and weights are considered as fuzzy quantities and are characterized by appropriate linguistic variables and corresponding triangular fuzzy numbers. Firstly, the skills of the candidate auditors are represented linguistically. This kind of linguistic description can be best coded in fuzzy terms by using linguistic variables. Triangular fuzzy numbers and linguistic variables, which are used by Karsak (2000) is employed. Four levels are used: very good (VG), good (G), fair (F) and poor (P). These linguistic variables are shown in Fig. 3. As an example, suppose that there are 10 candidate auditors in the auditor pool. These candidates are evaluated according to the skills, which are Knowledge on Projects (KP), Knowledge about Manufacturing (KM), Knowledge on Data Processing (KDP) and Auditing Skills (AS). The fuzzy descriptions for the candidate team members in the auditor pool are given in Table 1.

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Fig. 3. Membership functions for linguistic variables used in the model (P: (0, 0.3, 0.5), F: (0.3, 0.5, 0.7), G: (0.6, 0.8, 0.9), VG: (0.8, 1, 1)). Table 1 Fuzzy descriptions of the auditors Candidate auditors (cn = 10) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Knowledge on projects (KP) VG G VG P F VG VG G VG G Knowledge on manufacturing (KM) F VG G VG F F VG F VG P Knowledge on data processing (KDP) G VG P G VG G F G F G Auditing skills (AS) F VG F VG G VG G VG F G

When forming a team, the team leader (the person responsible for the formation of the team, the lead auditor) should specify the requirements of these skills for each audit. If the requirement for KP is (G), KM is (F), KDP is (VG) and AS is (G), then the fuzzy ratings calculated from the extended fuzzy number multiplication and summation is given in Table 2. The membership functions of the fuzzy rating ri can be calculated for each candidate team member using the weighted average equation (Eq. (5)). The membership functions for the ratings are not triangular, but rather parabolic. However, a triangular approximation would be extremely close (Chen, 1996).
Table 2 Fuzzy rating evaluation of the auditors for the audit Candidate auditors 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ri G VG + F F + VG G + G F G G + F VG + VG VG + G VG G VG + F G + VG P + G F G P + F VG + VG G + G VG G F + F F + VG VG + G G G VG + F F + VG G + G VG G VG + F VG + VG F + G G G G + F F + VG G + G VG G VG + F VG + VG F + G F G G + F P + VG G + G G

T. Dereli et al. / J. Eng. Technol. Manage. 24 (2007) 366394 Table 3 Membership functions of the ratings Rating r1 r2 r3 r4 r5 r6 r7 r8 r9 r10 Membership function (2.04, (1.72, (0.84, (1.80, (2.08, (2.34, (1.32, (2.22, (1.14, (1.20, 2.25, 2.94, 1.90, 2.34, 2.29, 2.65, 2.44, 2.49, 2.20, 2.23, 2.92) 3.41) 2.66) 2.95) 2.93) 3.19) 3.11) 3.10) 2.93) 2.87)

377

The triangular membership function for each candidate that is obtained from the fuzzy rating calculation is presented in Table 3. For example, the triangular membership function for the rst candidate (fuzzy rating 1 in Table 3) is obtained as follows: r1 = (0.6, 0.8, 0.9) (0.8, 1, 1) + . . . + (0.6, 0.8, 0.9) (0.3, 0.5, 0.7), r1 = (2.04, 2.25, 2.92). The resultant triangular fuzzy numbers denote the suitability of each candidate to the given audit. The center value of these triangular membership functions presents the maximal grade of the membership and the most possible value of the candidates suitability (Yaakob and Kawata, 1999). In the proposed fuzzy mathematical-programming model, these suitability values are used to formulate the rst fuzzy objective function (Objective Function 1). Then, to control the size of each formed team a second fuzzy objective function (Objective Function 2) is included into the model. 4. The fuzzy quality audit-team formation model 4.1. Notation used in the model In this section, notations used in the mathematical model are presented before introducing the fuzzy team-formation model. ci cn Cij fti FTj Gl M pj sti Sk STj tn xij salary requirement of auditor i number of auditors in the auditor pool skill suitability of auditor i to the audit j nishing time of the auditor i due date of the audit j set of audit l, which overlaps with audit j the maximum number of teams that a candidate can be assigned to budget for the audit j starting time of the auditor i set of candidate k, which does not desire to be in the same team with candidate m starting date of the audit j number of QATs that will be formed for each audit  1 if candidate i is assigned to audit j 0 otherwise

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4.2. The model The fuzzy objective functions in the QAT formation model are dened as follows: max V max b where
$ $

Objective function 1 suitability objective objective function 2 team size objective

(6) (7) (8) (9)

V minfsg b minfgg s fCi j xi j g 8 i; j i 1; . . . ; cn X  cn xi j g 8 j j 1; . . . ; tn

i1

j 1; . . . ; tn

(10) (11)

8 s<a >0 < 1 b s mV a s<b > ba : 1 s!a 8 > 1 c g > > > a < 1 mb 1 g d > > > > : t 0

(12)

c a g <c a s<b d<g d t otherwise

(13)

The aim of the fuzzy model is to maximize the suitability of the auditors for each audit (the suitability objective) and optimize the size of each QAT (the team size objective) under the hard constraints. Fuzzy objective functions are characterized by membership functions (Zimmermann, 1976). The membership functions of the objectives are dened by Eqs. (12) and (13) (they are also graphically illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5). The parameters that are used in Eqs. (12) and (13) are determined by using the Intuition method (Ross, 1995). There are also some advanced techniques in the literature (Ross, 1995) for the estimation of these parameters like neural networks, genetic

Fig. 4. The membership function of the rst objective.

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Fig. 5. The membership function of the second objective.

algorithms, inductive reasoning, soft partitioning, fuzzy statistics, etc. These techniques are applicable if statistical data is available, which is not the case in the present problem. However, in the present team formation problem it is possible to employ the intuition method easily. The determination of the parameters is performed as follows: the parameters a and b are determined by considering the best and the worst suitable candidate auditor for the given audit. The parameter a represents the suitability of the worst performing candidate and has a membership value of 0 whereas the parameter b represents the desired suitability. The maximum value that can be assigned to b is 4 and it has a membership value of 1 in the membership function. In forming a QAT a value that is smaller than or equal to 4 must be set by the decision maker. The rest of the parameters (c, d, a and t) are determined by the decision maker by considering the desired team size. A team must be composed of at least two members. Thus, a team with size 1 has a 0 membership value. As stated in the previous sections, the size of a QAT generally varies between 2 and 4. A team with 24 people has a membership value of 1, therefore the parameter c is set to 2 and the parameter d is set to 4. The determination of the parameter t is left to the decision maker since the size of a QAT might be adjusted by taking into account the organization size. The model has ve sets of hard constraints which are dened as follows. 4.2.1. Availability of auditors for scheduled audits Each auditor is available for a certain time period, which is represented with the starting time sti and nishing time fti. Similarly, each audit has a pre-determined starting time STj and a due date FTj. Under these conditions, constraints 14 and 15 ensure that the assigned auditors are available during the audit period.
cn X sti xi j i1 cn X FT j xi j i1

ST j

8j

(14)

fti

8j

(15)

4.2.2. Auditors cannot be assigned to overlapping audits If an overlap occurs between scheduled audits j and l, then an auditor i cannot be assigned to both QATs. Constraint 16 ensures this condition. xi j xil 1 8 i; l 8 j : j 2 Gl (16)

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4.2.3. The maximum number of audits (M) that an auditor can be assigned to The certication body can set-up an upper limit for the maximum number of audits that an auditor can be assigned to. This constraint is given by Eq. (17).
cn X xi j i1

8j

(17)

4.2.4. Budget constraint Each audit has a cost to the certication body and each auditor requires a fee for making an audit. Constraint 18 ensures that the total fee requirements of a formed QAT should not exceed the budget of the audit.
cn X ci xi j i1

pj

8j

(18)

4.2.5. Undesired QAT composition Constraint 19 prevents the formation of an undesired QAT that contains member k and m who do not want to work in the same team. xk j xm j 1 8 j; k; 8 m : m 2 Sk (19) For the solution of the fuzzy QAT formation model, Zimmermanns max-min approach is used. Zimmermann (1976) used the max-min operator of Bellman and Zadeh (1970) for solving fuzzy mathematical programming problems. Fuzzy multiple objective mathematical problems with fuzzy objectives and fuzzy constraints can be formally stated as follows: max Z k x subject to; n X % ai j x j < bi
j1 %

k 1; . . . ; n (20)

i 1; . . . ; m j 1; . . . ; r

xj ! 0

The membership functions of the objectives and constraints are mk(x) and mi(x), respectively. Then the membership function of the fuzzy decision set, mD(x), is dened as; mD x mk x ^ mi x minfmk x; mi xg (21) To reach the optimal fuzzy decision, the decision, which is more favorable than the others, should be found. Zimmermann (1976) dened the decision as; mD xopt max mD x x 2 D (22) In summary, the fuzzy multiple objective mathematical programming problems that have fuzzy objectives and fuzzy constraints can be represented in the following form; max-minfmk x; mi xg k 1; . . . ; n; i 1; . . . ; m subject to; x j ! 0 j 1; . . . ; r (23)

In the fuzzy QAT formation problem, there are two fuzzy objectives and a set of hard constraints. To simplify the formulation, suitability objective is represented as OBJ1 and team

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size objective is denoted as OBJ2. The membership function for the OBJ1 is mOBJ1 and for the OBJ2 is mOBJ2 . Then, according to Zimmermanns max-min approach, the fuzzy decision D, which has the membership function mD can be represented as follows: mD mOBJ1 ^ mOBJ2 minfmOBJ1 ; mOBJ2 g. To reach the optimal fuzzy decision, denoted as D*, the decision, which is more favorable than the others, should be found. By using the Zimmermans approach, the optimal decision can be stated as follows: m max mD . D 5. Solving the fuzzy team formation model by using the simulated annealing algorithm It is a common practice in the literature to convert a given fuzzy model into a non-fuzzy linear equivalent, then applying a classical optimization procedure to obtain a solution. This approach may be restricting and may limit the applicability of fuzzy mathematical programming (Baykasoglu and Sevim, 2003). First of all, in some cases it may not be easy or possible to obtain a linear equivalent of a given fuzzy model. If an equivalent non-linear model is obtained then the solution of this model with the classical algorithms has some drawbacks as always noted in the literature (Baykasoglu and Sevim, 2003). To overcome these problems it is advisable to solve the fuzzy model directly without applying a transformation process. Meta-heuristics algorithms are capable of solving fuzzy models directly without any transformation. A well known meta-heuristic that is known as simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is employed in this research to solve the proposed fuzzy QAT formation model. It is also possible to select other meta-heuristics like genetic algorithms, tabu search and ant colony optimization for the solution of the proposed model. SA is preferred in this study for its easy implementation. SA is a stochastic neighborhood search method that is developed for solving the combinatorial optimization problems (Baykasoglu and Gindy, 2001). It is introduced by Kirkpatrick et al. (1983) as an analogy to the statistical mechanics of annealing in solids. SA technique use an analogous set the so called controlled cooling operations for nonphysical optimization problems, in effect transforming a poor, unordered solution into a highly optimized, desirable solution (Rutenbar, 1989). SA differs from iterative algorithms in that it does not trap into a local optimum but rather reach to global optimum. SA does so, by accepting neighborhood solutions worse than current solution with a probability. This acceptance probability is related to the temperature, which decrease during the process. As the temperature decreases, the acceptance probability decreases too. This means that as the temperature decreases, the probability of accepting worse neighborhood solutions decreases. 5.1. Basic components of the SA algorithm in relation to the fuzzy QAT formation model The elements of the SA algorithm in connection to fuzzy QAT formation model are dened as follows. 5.1.1. Conguration This represents a possible solution to the given problem. In this study a conguration is represented as a binary vector having the size (candidate number team number that will be formed; cn tn). Fig. 6 represents a sample conguration with ten candidates and two teams. In Fig. 6, candidates 1 and 3 are assigned to team 1; candidates 2 and 9 are assigned to team 2.

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Fig. 6. Representation of the solution vector in SA implementation.

Fig. 7. Neighborhood move.

5.1.2. Neighborhood move In order to reach all feasible congurations, a move from the current solution to the neighborhood solution must be performed. In this study, a neighborhood solution is obtained by mutation as illustrated in Fig. 7. The mutation procedure is dened as follows: Step 1: Select q number of locations in the solution vector randomly. Step 2: If the values in these locations are equal to 1, change them to 0, otherwise change them to 1. This procedure might generate infeasible solution vector. In such a case a new neighborhood move is made to get a feasible solution vector. In other words only feasible neighborhood moves are accepted. In Fig. 7, three locations are selected for mutation, after the neighborhood move candidates 1, 3 and 4 are assigned to team 1; candidates 2 and 4 are assigned to team 2. As it can be seen candidate 4 is assigned to both teams. 5.1.3. Objective function Objective function is used to measure how good a solution is. As it can be seen from the proposed model, there exist two objective functions. Suitability objective (OBJ1) tries to maximize the minimum suitability of candidate team member i to each team j and team size objective (OBJ2) tries to maximize the minimum team size for each team. Membership values of these fuzzy objectives, mOBJ1 and mOBJ2 are computed and the smaller value is accepted as the tness of the solution vector. During the SA iterations this smaller value is tried to be maximized. 5.1.4. Acceptance of a solution In the SA algorithm, the neighborhood solution is accepted if the tness improves, otherwise the solution is accepted with a probability depending on the temperature, which is set to allow the acceptance of a large proportion of generated solutions at the beginning (high temperature). Then, the temperature is modied (lowered) to decrease the probability of acceptance (Baykasoglu and Gindy, 2001). Suppose that i and j are two solutions with objective function values f i and f j, respectively. Then the neighborhood solution j is accepted according to the following acceptance probability: Pc faccept jg 1 if f j < f i e f j f i=T if f j > f i T 2 R denotes control parameter temperature: 

(24)

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5.1.5. Termination When the previously determined parameters are reached, the algorithm terminates (i.e. the maximum number of iterations, reaching the nal temperature, etc.). In this study, the maximum number of iterations is selected as the termination criteria. 5.1.6. Cooling schedule Selection of the SA parameters is called a cooling schedule. How high the starting temperature should be (Tin), and the rules to determine (a) when the current temperature should be lowered (length of the Markov chain at each iteration, LMC), (b) by how much the temperature should be lowered (rate of cooling, a), and (c) when the annealing process should be terminated (maximum number of iterations, elmax). Unfortunately, there is not a standard procedure to x these parameters. These parameters are generally set by a trial and error approach. The following parameters that resulted good solutions are used in this study; a = 0.98, elmax = 5000, Tin = 1,000,000, LMC = 10. 5.2. Example problems The fuzzy model introduced in the previous section, is tested on three different problems. 5.2.1. Example 1 Assume that there are 3 audits (tn = 3) that must be conducted and 10 auditors (cn = 10) are available. It is desired to form three QATs which contains 24 auditors. The lead auditor does not want auditors 1 and 2 to be in the same QAT because these two people do not get on well. Skill requirements for each audit and the other data related to audits are shown in Table 4. The timing of the project activities is also presented in the form of a Gantt chart in Fig. 8. The parameters of the membership functions for the objective functions are set to: a = 0.36, b = 2.5, c = 2, d = 4, a = 1 and
Table 4 Data for the scheduled audits (Example 1) Audit (tn = 3) 1 2 3 Knowledge on projects (KP) G F VG Knowledge on manufacturing (KM) F F VG Knowledge on data processing (KDP) VG G F Auditing skills (AS) G VG G Time period for each audit 15 37 69 Audit budget 2000 2000 2000

Fig. 8. Timing of each audit (Example 1).

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Table 5 The data for the candidate auditors (Example 1) Candidate auditors (cn = 10) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Knowledge on projects (KP) VG G VG P F VG VG G VG G Knowledge on manufacturing (KM) F VG G VG F F VG F VG P Knowledge on data processing (KDP) G VG P G VG G F G F G Auditing skills (AS) F VG F VG G VG G VG F G Available time period 110 211 17 29 19 112 110 16 210 18 Fee request per audit 250 275 365 210 320 300 295 340 280 265

Table 6 The formed QATs (Example 1) M Formed QATs Audit 1 2 6, 8 Audit 2 2, 4 Audit 3 1, 9 Membership function values Objective function 1 0, 9018 Objective function 2 1 Solution 0, 9018

t = 1. The certication body evaluates the auditors according to several skills, which are important for the completion of the audits successfully. These evaluations are shown in Table 5. The SA algorithm is run to solve the stated QAT formation. The SA algorithm converged to a solution in 2 s. The team compositions obtained with different M = 2 is shown in Table 6. The SA algorithm tries to maximize the tness value of the solution, which is the intersection of the membership values of both fuzzy objective functions. As it can be seen from the results, candidates 1 and 2 are assigned to different teams without violating any time constraints. Moreover, none of the auditors are assigned to overlapping audits. This example has shown that the proposed fuzzy model is quite effective in forming QAT by taking into account many factors that are important in QAT formation. Two different approaches can also be discussed here as alternatives to the proposed fuzzy model. The rst approach is the manual approach which can be performed in a brainstorming session. Generally the lead auditor determines candidate auditors which are able to join to the audit for the desired time period. If the number of audits and number of candidates are high it is very hard to end up with a feasible and objective decision for the QAT formation problem. The process can also be very time consuming as the number of factors that need to be considered are many. An attempt to form QAT manually is made for this example by the authors. After spending almost 1 h for this relatively small size problem it was not possible to construct feasible and competitive solution compared to the present fuzzy model which converges to a good solution in seconds. In the second approach an equivalent non-fuzzy goal programming model is formulated in order to present the advantages of the fuzzy model. The goal programming model is presented in Appendix A along with some discussions. 5.2.2. Example 2 In this example, there are 3 audits (tn = 3) that must be conducted and 50 auditors (cn = 50) are available. It is desired to form three QATs which contains 24 auditors. In the formed teams the

T. Dereli et al. / J. Eng. Technol. Manage. 24 (2007) 366394 Table 7 The data for the scheduled audits (Example 2) Audit (tn = 3) 1 2 3 Knowledge on projects (KP) F G VG Knowledge on manufacturing (KM) F VG F Knowledge on data processing (KDP) G VG F Auditing skills (AS) F F G Time period for each audit 15 28 29

385

Audit budget 700 750 700

Table 8 The data for the candidate auditors (Example 2) Candidate auditors (cn = 50) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 Knowledge on projects (KP) VG VG P VG P G VG F VG VG G P F P F VG VG F G VG G F VG G F F P G P F P G VG P G G P P G Knowledge on manufacturing (KM) VG G P G VG G VG P G F P G F P F VG G P P P G F G G VG F P VG F VG VG F F P G P P P G Knowledge on data processing (KDP) G F VG VG G VG F G VG G G VG G VG F G P G F F F G G G G P F P G F F VG P F VG F F P G Auditing skills (AS) F P F P F G F VG F VG VG G VG G F VG F VG VG VG F P G P P P F P G G VG P P VG G VG G F P Available time period 110 28 37 911 311 412 59 15 29 310 810 28 16 511 29 27 912 612 710 24 15 38 49 812 17 29 310 712 69 510 48 310 811 35 68 39 57 112 811 Fee request per audit 110 190 142 130 104 125 165 107 158 109 170 111 107 145 102 120 152 160 126 107 110 103 115 108 104 135 142 158 145 107 123 114 124 101 167 116 109 145 135

386 Table 8 (Continued ) Candidate auditors (cn = 50) 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Knowledge on projects (KP) G P VG G F P VG G F VG F

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Knowledge on manufacturing (KM) VG F P F G VG F P G F P

Knowledge on data processing (KDP) G F P VG P VG F F G G F

Auditing skills (AS) F VG G G P P G P F G VG

Available time period 26 711 36 57 311 15 47 410 611 412 69

Fee request per audit 129 180 120 121 128 100 145 147 136 102 151

Fig. 9. Timing of each audit (Example 2).

lead auditor does not want auditors 1 and 15 to work together in the same team. Skill requirements for each audit and the other data related to audits are shown in Table 7 and the evaluations about the auditors according to several skills related to audits are shown in Table 8. The parameters of the membership functions for the objective functions are set to: a = 0.36, b = 2.5, c = 2, d = 4, a = 1 and t = 1. The timing of the project activities is also presented in the form of a Gantt chart in Fig. 9. The SA algorithm is run to solve the stated QAT formation with the parameters that are given in the previous section. The algorithm forms three QATs in 19 s. The obtained solution for M = 2 is shown in Table 9. When the team compositions are examined, it can be seen that candidates 1 and 15 are assigned to different teams without violating any time constraints. Besides, QATs for the overlapping audits does not include the same auditor. In order to observe the effects of the fuzzy model parameters b and t on team compositions and solution quality, the SA algorithm is also run with different values for parameters b and t. As
Table 9 The formed QATs (Example 2) M Formed QATs Audit 1 2 18, 43, 46 Audit 2 9, 12, 15, 32 Audit 3 1, 14 Membership function values Objective function 1 0, 5514 Objective function 2 1 Solution 0, 5514

Table 10 The formed QATs for different values of the parameter b and t b t 1 2.5 QAT 1. 18,43,46 QAT 2. 9,12,15,32 QAT 3. 1, 14 Solution: 0.5514 QAT 1. 13, 25,43,46 QAT 2. 2,15,18 QAT 3. 9, 14 Solution: 0.4469 QAT 1. 32,43 QAT 2. 2, 9 QAT 3. 1,18,20 Solution: 0.3949 QAT 1. 1,43 QAT 2. 12,15 QAT 3. 9,14,32 Solution: 0.3379 2 QAT 1. 8,43 QAT 2. 2,12,15,32 QAT 3. 14, 18 Solution: 0.5514 QAT 1. 13, 43 QAT 2. 1,14,32 QAT 3. 9, 20 Solution: 0.4848 QAT 1. 8,13,43,46 QAT 2. 2, 12 QAT 3. 9, 32 Solution: 0.3757 QAT 1. 13,43,46 QAT 2. 2,12,15,18,32 QAT 3. 14, 20 Solution: 0.3241 3 QAT 1. 1, 8, 13, 43 QAT 2. 9, 12, 18 QAT 3. 14, 20, 32 Solution: 0.5514 QAT 1. 1, 32 QAT 2. 9, 15, 20 QAT 3. 14, 18 Solution: 0.4659 QAT 1. 18, 45 QAT 2. 2, 14 QAT 3. 1, 20 Solution: 0.3757 QAT 1. 18, 25 QAT 2. 2, 14 QAT 3. 1, 20 Solution: 0.3241 4 QAT 1. 13, 43 QAT 2. 1, 12 QAT 3. 9, 14, 32 Solution: 0.5747 QAT 1. 13, 43 QAT 2. 14,15,18,32 QAT 3. 1, 9 Solution: 0.4848 QAT 1. 18, 25 QAT 2. 2, 14 QAT 3. 1, 20 Solution: 0.3757 QAT 1. 18, 25 QAT 2. 2, 14 QAT 3. 1, 20 Solution: 0.3241 5 QAT 1. 13,43 QAT 2. 1,12 QAT 3. 9,14,32 Solution: 0.5747 QAT 1. 13, 43 QAT 2. 14,15,18,32 QAT 3. 1, 9 Solution: 0.4848 QAT 1. 18,25 QAT 2. 2,14 QAT 3. 1,20 Solution: 0.3757 QAT 1. 18,25 QAT 2. 2,14 QAT 3. 1, 20 Solution: 0.3241 6 QAT 1. 13,43 QAT 2. 1,12 QAT 3. 9,14,32 Solution: 0.5747 QAT 1. 13,43 QAT 2. 14,15,18,32 QAT 3. 1, 9 Solution: 0.4848 QAT 1. 18,25 QAT 2. 2,14 QAT 3. 1, 20 Solution: 0.3757 QAT 1. 18,25 QAT 2. 2,14 QAT 3. 1, 20 Solution: 0.3241

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3.0

3.5

4.0

387

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Table 11 The data for the scheduled audits (Example 3) Audit (tn = 4) 1 2 3 4 Knowledge on projects (KP) VG G G VG Knowledge on manufacturing (KM) G VG G VG Knowledge on data processing (KDP) F G F G Auditing skills (AS) G F G G Time period for each audit 310 15 412 1115 Audit budget 650 720 695 700

stated in the model formation section the parameter b is used to dene the membership function of the suitability objective whereas the parameter t is used to dene the membership function of the team size objective. The parameter b is varied between 2.5 and 4 and the parameter t is varied between 1 and 6. The results of the computational experiments are shown in Table 10. When Table 10 is examined it can be seen that changes in the parameter t has a small affect on the membership value of the solution. However, the membership value of the solution is sensitive to the changes in the parameter b. Therefore, the parameter b should be selected carefully in relation to the desired skill level in QATs. 5.2.3. Example 3 In this example a large-scale problem is solved in order to observe the performance of the algorithm on a larger size problem. There are 100 candidate auditors (cn = 100). It is desired to form four QATs each containing 24 auditors (tn = 4). During the team formation the lead auditor wants to avoid the assignment of auditors 24 and 98 to the same QAT because these two people do not get on well. Skill requirements for each audit and the other data related to audits are shown in Table 11. The parameters of the membership functions for the objective functions are set to: a = 0.36, b = 2.5, c = 2, d = 4, a = 1 and t = 1. The evaluations about auditors according to several skills related to audits are not included here due to space limitations. This data can be required from the authors. The SA algorithm is run with the following parameters: a = 0.98, elmax = 5000, Tin = 1,000,000, LMC = 100 to form four QATs. SA found a solution around 5 min. The convergence of the algorithm is depicted in Fig. 10. The team compositions obtained with M = 2

Fig. 10. Converge of the SA algorithm.

T. Dereli et al. / J. Eng. Technol. Manage. 24 (2007) 366394 Table 12 The formed QATs (Example 3) M Formed QATs Audit 1 2 5, 9, 45, 83 Audit 2 13, 24, 63, 72 Audit 3 1, 17, 73, 78 Audit 4 42, 80 Membership function values Objective function 1 0, 6448 Objective function 2 1

389

Solution 0, 6448

is shown in Table 12. When the results are examined it can be seen that the desired QATs are formed without violating any constraints. All teams contain maximum four auditors with the required skills.

6. Concluding remarks An effective auditing can improve and accelerate the implementation process of quality management systems. Value-added (quality) auditing is considered as an effective auditing technique in which auditors not only evaluate quality management system and processes in terms of compliance to a standard, but also they analyze their effectiveness. The value-added (quality) auditing is emerging as one of the most powerful tools for continuous quality improvement, with the introduction of the ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 19011 standards that focus on effectiveness, process auditing, proper auditor skills and team-based audits. Formation of an effective quality audit team (QAT) based on the required auditor skills is therefore the initial stage of the value added auditing. The quality of quality audits should also be improved and the quality audits should be applied as a continuous improvement tool while the main emphasis should be given to value added auditing. The auditing bodies should apply ISO 9000 principles when they audit the organizations, like forming the quality auditing teams, as the use of teams are suggested to companies for continuous improvement and problem solving efforts. For a successful value-added quality auditing, the rst step is to form an audit team which will be capable of making process audits in the organizations. For this reason, in this paper, a multiple-objective fuzzy quality audit team (QAT) formation model and its solution algorithm are developed. The solution algorithm is based on the simulated annealing algorithm and it is able to solve the presented fuzzy optimization model directly. Three example applications with various sizes are given in the paper. In the examples comparison with non-fuzzy model, parameter analyses are also carried out. The proposed model can be used to form quality audit teams by taking into account skills required/available and many other practical constraints. The present problem is especially important for accreditation companies carrying out audits since auditing success greatly depends on the performance of auditing teams. It should also be noted here that there is much published work in the literature discussing the benets of teams. Nevertheless, there are just a few papers about analytic/systematic formation of the teams. Of course, the audit teams are not something new as quality auditing. In this work, it is attempted to systematically design the teams that can be used for auditing of quality management systems (e.g. ISO 9000, ISO 14000, OHSAS 18001, etc.). This paper presents an analytical approach to form quality auditing teams and therefore it can be considered as an attempt to ll this gap in the literature. However, the present model can also be arranged and extended for the formation of teams that can be used for different tasks.

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Appendix A. Reconsideration of Example 1 as a goal programming model In this section, an equivalent goal programming model for Example 1 is formulated in order to draw some more conclusions on the proposed fuzzy model. The rst goal (z1) in the goal programming model tries to achieve an overall suitability, which is not less than a user specied value (SL). The second goal (z2) tries to set the team size to a user dened value (TS). The objective function is written as the preemptive minimization of the deviations from the goals. The constraints are the same with the fuzzy model. In order to draw some parallelism between the fuzzy and goal programming model the parameter, Cij (skill suitability of auditor i to the audit j) is rounded to nearest integer in the goal programming model, where 1 represent the worst suitability, 2 is average, 3 is good and 4 is the best suitability. 3 2 2:25 1:89 2:3 6 2:94 2:7 3:1 7 7 6 7 6 6 1:9 1:64 2:35 7 7 6 6 2:34 2:29 2:5 7 7 6 7 6 6 2:29 2:1 2:14 7 7 Ci j 6 6 2:65 2:39 2:7 7 fuzzy model; 7 6 7 6 6 2:44 2:2 2:89 7 7 6 6 2:49 2:29 2:5 7 7 6 7 6 4 2:2 1:9 2:65 5 2:23 1:99 2:14 3 2 2 2 2 63 3 37 7 6 7 6 62 2 27 7 6 62 2 37 7 6 7 6 62 2 27 7goal programming model 6 Ci j 6 7 63 2 37 7 6 62 2 37 7 6 62 2 37 7 6 7 6 42 2 35 2 2 2 The goal programming model is given as follows:
lexmin fz1 d ; z2 d1 d1 d2 d2 d3 d3 g

Subject to;
cn X C i j xi j d d SL i1 cn X xi j d d TS j j i1

8j

j 1; . . . ; tn

8j

j 1; . . . ; tn

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Table A1 Solutions obtained from the goal programming model TS SL 25 2 QAT-1 1, 6, 8 z1 = 0, z2 = 4 QAT-1 5, 6, 10 z1 = 0, z2 = 1 QAT-1 3, 5, 6, 8 z1 = 0, z2 = 0 QAT-2 2, 5, 10 QAT-2 1, 3, 9 QAT-2 1, 4, 7, 10 QAT-3 1, 6, 7, 9 QAT-3 2, 4, 6, 7 QAT-3 2, 5, 6, 9 30 QAT-1 1, 3, 6, 8 z1 = 0, z2 = 6 QAT-1 5, 6, 8 z1 = 0, z2 = 3 QAT-1 1, 6, 7, 8 z1 = 0, z2 = 0 QAT-2 2, 10 QAT-2 2, 3, 10 QAT-2 2, 3, 5, 10 QAT-3 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 QAT-3 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 QAT-3 4, 6, 7, 9 35 QAT-1 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 z1 = 1, z2 = 8 QAT-1 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 z1 = 1, z2 = 5 QAT-1 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 z1 = 1, z2 = 4 QAT-2 2, 3 QAT-2 2, 3, 10 QAT-2 2, 3, 10 QAT-3 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 QAT-3 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 QAT-3 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9

391

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cn X i1 cn X FT j xi j i1

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sti xi j

ST j

8j

fti 1

8j 8 j : j 2 Gl

xi j xil
cn X xi j i1 cn X ci xi j i1

8 i; l 8j

pj 1

8j 8 j; k; 8 m : m 2 Sk

xk j xm j

where 8 i; j xi j 0 or 1; d ; d ; d1 ; d1 ; d2 ; d2 ; d3 ; d3 ! 0. The goal programming model is solved by using the Excel solver with different combinations of TS and SL parameters as shown in Table A1 for M = 2. The main criticism for the non-fuzzy goal programming model is in the setting up of the Cij, TS and SL parameters. These parameters are naturally fuzzy parameters, if we try to dene them as discrete parameters the mathematical model needs to be run for every possible combination of these parameters in order to get a good solution (a small set of combinations are shown in Table A1). This is time consuming and may not be practical for larger size problems. Moreover dening Cij with discrete values instead of fuzzy linguistic variables is another drawback. Skill suitability can be dened in a much better way by using fuzzy linguistic variables. For example, in discrete settings it is not possible to differentiate between a skill level of 2.25 and 2.50 but this is an easy task in a fuzzy model. If we examine the solutions from Table A1 it can be concluded that the model tries to satisfy the suitability score (the rst objective) by assigning more auditors to the QATs. This is an expensive solution, more resources and money is needed to carry out audits. However, the fuzzy model (see Section 5.2.1) can suggest a solution with less number of auditors in each team with a high suitability score. But we should mention that a competitive solution might be found by the goal programming model by setting up proper levels for TS and SL. However, nding these combinations might require lots of trials.

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