An Extended Picture Fuzzy VIKOR Approach for Sustainable Supplier Management and Its Application in the Beef Industry

Nowadays, sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has received considerable attention because of strict government requirements and increased pressure from the public. In the SSCM, selecting suitable suppliers plays a significant role in improving the overall sustainability performance of a company. Therefore, this article aims to develop a modified VIKOR (in Serbian: VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) technique for sustainable supplier evaluation and selection, that uses ordered weighted distance operators in the aggregation of picture fuzzy information. Concretely, we first propose the picture fuzzy-ordered weighted standardized distance (PFOWSD) operator and the picture fuzzy Euclidean-ordered weighted standardized distance (PFEOWSD) operator, and extended them by using the hybrid average operator. Then, we develop a sustainable supplier selection approach by combining the picture fuzzy distance operators and the VIKOR method. The new approach can manipulate attitudinal character of the classical VIKOR method, so that a decision maker can take decisions according to his or her preference. Further, by using the PFOWSD operator, one can parametrize the VIKOR method from the maximum to the minimum result. Thus, the information obtained using the new sustainable supplier selection approach is much more complete. Finally, a practical case example in the beef supply chain is given to explain the proposed picture fuzzy-ordered weighted distance (PFOWD)-VIKOR model, and the results are compared with current relevant representative approaches to verify its feasibility and superiority.