A fuzzy hybrid group decision support system approach for the supplier evaluation process

The quality and delivery performance of a typical company depends largely on the capability of its suppliers. It is therefore important for a company to evaluate the performance of its existing suppliers. However, the problem of supplier evaluation is rather complex when a group of decision makers responsible for these suppliers are geographically dispersed. Evaluating decisions requiring the elicitation of vague and imprecise linguistic information expressed in fuzzy terms. For this purpose, a hybrid fuzzy group decision-making approach for supplier evaluation is proposed, integrating the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) and the fuzzy preference-ranking-organization-method-for-enrichment-of-evaluation (PROMETHEE) group decision support system (F-PROMETHEE GDSS) method. F-AHP is used to determine the weight of multiple criteria while F-PROMETHEE GDSS is applied for the final ranking of suppliers from a group decision viewpoint. The approach advances the supplier evaluation context in two aspects. First, it treats each decision maker uniquely in terms of the preference function and threshold levels. Second, it provides rapid communication between teams through video conferencing. The hybrid approach is used to evaluate the suppliers of a dairy company