An integrated intuitionistic fuzzy set and stochastic multi-criteria acceptability analysis approach for supplier selection

One of the challenging and complicate processes in supply chain management is to select best supplier from the set of suppliers since they have direct and indirect effects on the core functions of the companies. The supplier selection problem is generally accepted as multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) since it includes conflict criteria which include uncertain and ambiguous data. Therefore, fuzzy set and its extensions such as intuitionistic fuzzy set have been integrated with MCDM methods in past two decades as they have great capability to handle uncertainty. In this study, hybrid method based on intuitionistic fuzzy preference relation (IFPR) and stochastic multi-criteria acceptability analysis (SMAA-2) is introduced to select best supplier. In the first stage, IFPR is exploited to obtain the criteria weights using the preference of decision-makers (DMs). SMAA-2 method has been utilized to rank alternatives which are rated based on the individual preferences of DMs. The proposed method has been implemented to the selection of the most suitable supplier for effective purchasing the vehicle rental service needed by the armed forces considering the eight criteria. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis has been conducted under eight different scenarios obtained by changing the criteria weights. The results illustrate that IFPR-SMAA-2 method is more capable of discriminating in ranking of alternatives and provides more reliable solutions.