Applications of Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Making to Supplier Selection: A Literature Review

Supplier selection is one of the most important decisions since inappropriate decision may affect the whole supply chain management. Various multi-criteria decision making (MCDM)approaches have been proposed to solve this problem. Some journal articles reviewed the literature regarding to supplier evaluation and selection models. However, most of them were very general and fail to focus on a specific knowledge domain. This paper aims to review specifically on the applications of fuzzy MCDM to supplier selection problem. We extend the previous reviews by gathering related articles appearing in international journals and conference proceedings. The review was made from 2000-2013 and split into two categories; value and utility theory approaches and multiple objective programming approaches. From the observation, we noticed that 58% were used value and utility theory approaches against 42% of multiple objective programming. About 45% of approaches in value and utility theory approaches were based on AHP. This paper offers useful information for other researchers since it provides the latest evidence of fuzzy MCDM approaches in supplier selection. The ability to continually innovate a new decision making method is a driving force for the applications of various utility and programming based MCDM approaches and this will allow many new future applications specifically to supplier selections.