A fuzzy integral-based model for supplier evaluation and improvement

Decisions related to supplier improvement and selection are inherently multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problems and are strategically important to companies. Although efforts have been made to discover systematic methods to select the proper supplier, these efforts have assumed that the criteria are independent, which is not actually the case. Some studies that have treated the criteria as interdependent use additive models to obtain aggregate performance. We propose a novel fuzzy integral-based model that addresses the interdependence among the various criteria and employs the non-additive gap-weighted analysis. The structure of the relationships among the criteria and the criteria weights are developed using Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) combined with a fundamental concept of an analytic network process (ANP) called DANP. The fuzzy integral is then used to aggregate the gaps using the weights obtained from the DANP. The proposed model addresses the shortcomings of prior models and provides a more reasonable representation of the real world. The method is demonstrated using supplier evaluation and improvement data from a Taiwanese company. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc.