An Integrated Approach of Analytic Hierarchy Process and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (AHP-DEMATEL) to Solve the Supplier Selection Problem

Abstract

It is crucial to select the best supplier for a company because the product development will be affected when the wrong supplier is selected. In this study, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is implemented to choose the best supplier for a printing company. However, the AHP method could not identify the influence among criteria. Therefore, it is integrated with the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The objectives of this study are to select the best supplier for a printing company and determining the interrelationship between the criteria by identifying the influences of each criterion to other criteria. A discussion with the decision-maker was held to finalize the criteria and suppliers used in this study. The criteria used are cost (C1), quality (C2), relationship with the supplier (C3), warranty (C4), and machinery safety (C5), while the chosen alternatives are Supplier 1 (S1), Supplier 2 (S2), and Supplier 3 (S3). Experimental results show that the ranking order for the criteria is C1> C5> C2> C4> C3, and the ranking order for the supplier is S2> S3> S1, which concludes that S2 is the best supplier to supply the printing machine to the company. As for the interrelationship between criteria, the criterion that highly influences the other criteria is quality (C2), and the less influential criterion is the warranty (C4). To conclude, the proposed method is appropriate in selecting the best supplier since the findings correspond to the decision maker's choices. Furthermore, this method provides relevant information to the decision-maker about the interrelationship between each criterion and which criterion should be given more attention.