Assessing the Best Supplier Selection Criteria in Supply Chain Management During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the last 10 years, organizations and researchers have recognized the importance of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) because of the consumers, -profit and non-profit organizations, laws and regulations, and consumer social and corporate responsibilities. Supplier selection, environmental effects such as social cooperation, and other SSCM programmes, can all help to achieve the triple bottom line (TBL) of economic, environmental, and social advantages. Sustainable supplier selection (SSS) and firm performance are important factors in supply chain management (SCM). Organizations will traditionally consider a new framework when evaluating SSS performance to obtain all-encompassing criteria/sub-criteria of the sustainability index by encapsulating sustainability. This paper compiles 12 subcriteria for three sustainability pillars, namely economic, environmental, and social performance. Despite the fact that many articles on SSS and evaluation were published during COVID-19, there seems to be little research on sustainability issues to date. The goal of this study is to suggest a fuzzy multicriteria approach to SSCM planning. Additionally, using the TBL method, the problem of determining a current model for SSS in the supply chain was investigated. The linguistic value of the subjective preference of experts is represented by triangular fuzzy numbers. Fuzzy TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution) is proposed to use standard weights to rank SSS for qualitative performance evaluation. COVID-19, on the other hand, has a detrimental impact on SSS and company results. The organization's performance suffers as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown. The proposed method is demonstrated using an example.

Automated summary

In the past decade, the importance of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has been recognized by organizations and researchers due to factors such as consumers, profit and non-profit organizations, laws and regulations, and consumer social and corporate responsibilities. Supplier selection, environmental effects, and other SSCM programs can contribute to achieving the triple bottom line (TBL) of economic, environmental, and social advantages. This paper proposes a new framework for evaluating sustainable supplier selection (SSS) performance, encompassing all aspects of sustainability through comprehensive criteria and sub-criteria. The study suggests a fuzzy multicriteria approach to SSCM planning and utilizes the fuzzy TOPSIS method for qualitative performance evaluation. However, there is limited research on sustainability issues, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.