Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Based Decision Support System for Supplier Selection in Textile Industry

It has been recognized that supplier selection is one of the fundamental operations in supply chain. Over the past few decades, industries as well as academia has focused on optimization of product cost and providing improved services to the clients by optimizing supply chain management. There needs to be an efficient supplier selection method in order to achieve this goal. The supplier selection is a multiple criteria decision making problem which involves numerous factors including both quantitative and qualitative data. This study applies fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) approach for supplier selection in a textile industry in Pakistan. Criteria for supplier selection were identified by having informal interview with the purchase manager of a textile manufacturing company for paper cone supplier selection. Criteria identified and considered for supplier selection were price & cost, quality, services, delivery time & payment terms. Later, ranking of suppliers have been done to select the best supplier and discussed research implications.