A fuzzy three-stage multi-attribute decision-making approach based on customer needs for sustainable supplier selection

With the current growth purchase trends of new energy vehicles (NEVs), selecting appropriate supplier(s) based on sustainable criteria has become a significant choice in this fiercely competitive market. In this paper, a fuzzy three-stage integrated multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is proposed to select the most qualified supplier. First, triple bottom line (TBL) is applied to establish the sustainable supplier criteria with respect to economic, environmental, and social aspects. Second, the performance of sustainable suppliers is evaluated using the proposed approach, which consists of three operational stages. The first stage aggregates decision makers' opinions. The second stage transforms the ratings from the customer's perspective to the designer's perspective. In this stage, the quality function deployment (QFD) integrated with interval-valued intuitionistic trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (IVITENs) is used to address the ambiguity in human thought, and transform the customer needs (CNs) into engineering characteristics (ECs). The third stage prioritizes the alternatives according to ECs. The VITse Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method integrated with IVITENs is utilized to rank and select supplier(s). Finally, a case study of NEV battery suppliers' selection demonstrates the applicability and robustness of this proposed approach. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.