A Combined Approach for Sustainable Supplier Selection: A Case Study for a Manufacturing Firm

Abstract

Due to the increasing awareness of environmental and social issues, many researchers have paid much attention to the sustainable supplier selection. This paper addresses sustainable supplier selection problem. Although there are many studies on supplier selection, there is no study that takes into account the advantages of supplying two semi- parts from the same supplier. Supplying semi- parts from the same supplier which has similar production processess and which can transport simultaneously provides advantages to the firms in terms of price, transportation cost and resource consumption. In this study, suppliers were weighted by the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. In addition, the contributions of supplying two semi- parts from the same supplier are determined by the AHP method. Mathematical model is used to determine the supplier for each semi- parts. The objective function of the mathematical model is maximizing total weights of the suppliers and contributions of the suppliying two semi- parts from the same supplier. The production capacities of suppliers were taken into account in the study. A case study is provided in a medical devices manufacturer to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methodology.