Fuzzy AHP, DEA, and managerial analysis for supplier selection and development; From the perspective of open innovation

Abstract

Supplier management is critical for supply chain management (SCM). The aim of supplier selection is to find an order of preference among potential suppliers. However, the ranking results for supplier selection may not be important, particularly when the performances are conflicting or have minor differences. Different criteria may have different impacts on the ranking results, and different decision makers may place different priorities on multiple criteria. Relatively worse suppliers may still have to be used for many practical reasons. One alternative is supplier development, but it has been focused on categorizing individual suppliers for possible action plans. A new framework is proposed in this research to address supplier selection and supplier development at the same time in the publishing and printing industries. First, the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (fuzzy AHP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) are sequentially performed to rank and select the best supplier(s) of a publishing company. In addition to ranking suppliers, a managerial analysis is proposed to assess the impact of important criteria on supplier selection in more detail. Finally, the results of the DEA are provided for direct supplier development without supplier categorization. This research shows that the proposed framework effectively addresses supplier development as well as supplier selection in the publishing and printing industries.