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Employing fuzzy TOPSIS and SWOT for supplier selection and order allocation problem

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Abstract

Supplier selection is a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problem which is affected by several conflicting factors. In the business market of flaming competition in recent years, more attention has been paid to this problem. In this paper, a model is proposed in two phases. At first, suppliers are evaluated according to both qualitative and quantitative criteria arising from strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis. SWOT, as a useful technique in strategic management, is utilized to determine criteria and deal with suppliers’ situation in a competitive market. Moreover, fuzzy set theory is employed to deal with the vagueness of human thought. Then, fuzzy logic is integrated with technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) technique to calculate weights of criteria. In the second phase, results from fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS) are used as an input for linear programming to allocate orders. Finally, a case study has been used simultaneously to validate the proposed model.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

    S. Mohammad Arabzad

  2. Department of Industrial Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

    Mazaher Ghorbani

  3. School of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Jafar Razmi

  4. Department of Industrial Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

    Hadi Shirouyehzad

Authors
  1. S. Mohammad Arabzad
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  2. Mazaher Ghorbani
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  3. Jafar Razmi
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  4. Hadi Shirouyehzad
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jafar Razmi.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Convert the linguistic evaluations into TFN to construct the fuzzy decision matrix and determine the fuzzy weight of each criterion

Table 23 Fuzzy decision matrix and fuzzy weights of five suppliers (internal criteria, part 1)
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Table 24 Fuzzy decision matrix and fuzzy weights of five suppliers (external criteria, part 1)
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Table 25 Fuzzy decision matrix and fuzzy weights of five suppliers (internal criteria, part 2)
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Table 26 Fuzzy decision matrix and fuzzy weights of five suppliers (external criteria, part 2)
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Appendix 2

The distance of each supplier from FPIS and FNIS regarding each criterion for part 1 and 2

Table 27 Distances between A i (i = 1, 2,…, 5) and (A + and A −) with respect to each criterion (part 1)
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Table 28 Distances between A i (i = 1, 2,…, 5) and (A + and A −) with respect to each criterion (part 1)
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Table 29 Distances between A i (i = 1, 2,…, 5) and (A + and A −) with respect to each criterion (part 2)
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Table 30 Distances between A i (i = 1, 2,…, 5) and (A + and A −) with respect to each criterion (part 2)
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Arabzad, S.M., Ghorbani, M., Razmi, J. et al. Employing fuzzy TOPSIS and SWOT for supplier selection and order allocation problem. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 76, 803–818 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-014-6288-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-014-6288-3

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