Supplier selection and evaluation in the garment supply chain: an integrated DEA-PCA-VIKOR approach

Purchasing decisions are playing a key role in business policy. In this regard, product qualities and popularities, company's reputation and enhancing quick-response are highly dependent on the raw material suppliers' performance. In garment supply chain, these decisions are based on competitive goals to provide the most customer satisfaction. In this article, quantitative and qualitative decision-making criteria are comprehensively developed to enable the logistician to systematically evaluate and select the suppliers. Then, a three-step integrated approach is proposed to deal with the supplier selection and evaluation problem in the garment industry. In the first phase, the criteria are reduced by maintaining the maximum information and adoption of principal component analysis. In the second phase, the additive model of data envelopment analysis is enhanced by the resultant principal components to determine the efficient suppliers. Finally, the third phase is concerned with ranking of efficient suppliers through Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method as a compromise ranking approach. A numerical study in a garment supply chain is conducted to show the applicability and utility of the model development.

Automated summary

This article discusses the importance of purchasing decisions in business policy, with a focus on the impact of raw material suppliers on product quality and popularity in the garment supply chain. Through quantitative and qualitative decision-making criteria, as well as a three-step integrated approach, suppliers can be systematically evaluated and selected.