Agile supplier evaluation using a fuzzy decision making procedure based on fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral

Abstract

Supply chain agility consists of increasing the quality standards of services or products of an organization in order to immediately respond to the dynamic environments conditions. In this regard, supply chain agility is essential in sharply competitive markets that include high scale of variety and individualistic preferences. Supply chain agility requires a systemic process that gives importance to customer feedbacks and follows the differentiation about competitors in the market. An effective supplier selection process is essential for achieving supply chain agility. Agile supplier selection requires considering numerous attributes with inherent vagueness and imprecision, yielding in general a multi-level hierarchical structure that enables to conduct a more effective analysis. Thus, in this study a fuzzy multi-criteria decision making approach based on the principles of fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral, which enables to incorporate imprecise data represented as linguistic variables into the analysis, is developed for determining the most appropriate agile supplier alternative. The proposed decision framework is illustrated by a case study conducted in a dye manufacturer that performs in Turkish dye industry.