A Two-Phase Multi-criteria Fuzzy Group Decision Making Approach for Supplier Evaluation and Order Allocation Considering Multi-objective, Multi-product and Multi-period

Due to severe competition among business organizations, the selection of supplier becomes more important for business success. However, supplier selection problems are complex and unstructured since it involves a large number of criteria and some of the criteria cannot be assessed accurately. Also, supplier’s performance fluctuations and unknown information always exist in the real-world decisions. Moreover, the criteria may be qualitative or quantitative in nature as well as supplier evaluation involves a group of experts with diverse opinions. To handle such uncertain and vague information of suppliers, use of fuzzy sets is an appropriate option. Hence, for making a realistic decision, this research proposes a two-phase method to select the suitable suppliers and allocate appropriate orders to them. In first phase of the study, the ranking of supplier is performed by using fuzzy MULTIMOORA method with regard to the important criteria. Then, multi-objective linear programming (MOLP) method in fuzzy environment is proposed to allocate orders to the preferred suppliers in the second phase. The model is developed in multi-product environment by satisfying demand, lead time and capacity constraints. We used expected value method to transform the fuzzy multi objective problem into a crisp single objective problem. Appropriate orders are assigned to the preferred suppliers by considering the closeness coefficient to the fuzzy MOLP model. At last, a case study is performed in an Indian manufacturing organization to illustrate the proposed model.