Fuzzy multiobjective linear model for supplier selection in a supply chain

Within new strategies for purchasing and manufacturing, suppliers play a key role in achieving corporate competition. Hence, selecting the right suppliers is a vital component of these strategies. In practice, vagueness and imprecision of the goals, constraints and parameters in this problem make the decision-making complicated. In spite of the importance of the problem the literature on this subject is relatively scarce. In this paper a fuzzy multiobjective linear model is developed to overcome the vagueness of the information. For the first time in a fuzzy supplier selection problem, an asymmetric fuzzy-decision making technique is applied to enable the decision-maker to assign different weights to various criteria. The model is explained by an illustrative example. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.