Applying Fuzzy Utilities Additives STAR for Sustainable Supplier Selection in Iran's Construction Industry

Abstract

Nowadays supply chain sustainability efforts are continuing to grow globally. While the focus of typical supply chain management mostly is on the speed, cost and reliability of operations, sustainable supply chain management adds the goals of upholding environmental, financial and social responsibilities. Although the worth of supply chain management in large-scale projects, in particular, the construction industry has been recognized currently, its execution remains subject to significant challenges. One of the main challenges is the complexity of the sustainable suppliers’ selection. They can enhance the profitability and success of the project-oriented construction organizations. In this respect, this article aims to apply fuzzy Utilities-Additives STAR (UTASTAR), the extended Utilities Additives Method for multiple criteria decision, to select sustainable suppliers and evaluate general utility function of the problem. Finally, since this method belongs to compensatory multi-criteria decision-making models the results obtained through the application of the fuzzy UTASTAR were compared with some selected models from the compensatory subgroup. According to comparative results, fuzzy UTASTAR can identify deviation from actual utility of alternatives using upper and lower estimations. As a result, this study shows that the rankings produced by the fuzzy UTASTAR method are more trustworthy for selecting suppliers in ensuring the sustainable development.