An Extended Alternative Queuing Method with Linguistic Z-numbers and Its Application for Green Supplier Selection and Order Allocation

With the increased awareness of environmental issues worldwide, sustainable production and development have become very important for various industries. Through green supplier selection and order allocation (GSSOA), companies can save costs, improve their green performance and thus build competitive advantage. To select appropriate supply partners and reasonable allocate order quantity, this paper develops a new integrated GSSOA model through the combination of linguistic Z-numbers, alternative queuing method (AQM) and multi-objective line programming (MOLP) model. The principal contribution of this work lies in the following aspects: Firstly, the linguistic Z-numbers are adopted to express decision-makers' performance evaluations of alternative suppliers comprehensively. Secondly, a step-weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) technique is used to calculate the weights of selection criteria. Then, an extended AQM is proposed for the ranking of the given green suppliers. Finally, a MOLP model is established to determine the optimal order quantity for the qualified green suppliers according to their priority values. An empirical example and a comparison analysis with the existing methods are presented to illustrate the rationality and efficiency of our developed GSSOA model.