Assessing the impact of supplier benchmarking in manufacturing value chains: an Intelligent decision support system for original equipment manufacturers

Abstract

This research aims to aid original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to model, analyze, evaluate, and benchmark potential design and manufacturing suppliers based on respective product engineering teams’ efficiencies. The product engineering efficiency in this study is modeled in terms of product engineering-related attributes such as commercial lead time, number of parts, number of green features, number of end products developed, and so forth. Essentially, these parameters capture more complex interactions than simple traditional supplier selection criteria such as cost, quality, delivery, and flexibility. Due to the presence of information uncertainty in terms of bounds related to the suppliers’ related parameters, a number of data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency measurement models have been deployed. The proposed decision support system is novel because it models both the self-assessment type and cross-efficiency type using DEA such that maximum discrimination can be achieved amongst suppliers in the presence of interval data. The study is demonstrated for ten different sheet-metal cabin suppliers. Comparison with some well-known, relevant methods is also carried out to illustrate the validity of the proposed method. The research can specifically help supply chain managers to align the evaluation of potential suppliers with their firm's commercial considerations in the presence of information uncertainty.

Keywords:

• Supplier evaluation
• benchmarking
• decision support system
• information uncertainty
• original equipment manufacturers
• data envelopment analysis

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Declarations of interest

None.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohit Goswami

Dr. Mohit Goswami is currently associated as Assistant Professor in Operations Management group in Indian Institute of Management, Raipur. Dr. Goswami earned his Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur in the department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Master of Science from Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, USA in Engineering Management. He has more than a decade of rich industry experiences in global organizations like Tata Motors Ltd, Caterpillar Inc., Illinois, USA, and Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Ltd. He has published research papers in reputed journals such as International Journal of Production Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Journal of Engineering Design, and International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology etc. At IIM Raipur, he also currently serves as Chairperson of executive MBA and e-learning programs.

Yash Daultani

Dr. Yash Daultani is a faculty member of the Operations Management Group at IIM Lucknow. Before joining IIM Lucknow, he was associated with ABV-IIITM Gwalior as an assistant professor. He holds a doctoral (Fellow) degree from the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow. He has published several research articles that appeared in the International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, etc. His research interests are in the domain of Industry 4.0, and Supply Chain Modeling.

Felix T.S. Chan

Prof. Felix Chan received his BSc Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Brighton University, UK, and obtained his MSc and PhD in Manufacturing Engineering from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, UK. Prior joining Macau University of Science and Technology, Prof. Chan has many years of working experience in other universities including The Hong Kong Polytechnic; University of Hong Kong; University of South Australia; University of Strathclyde. His current research interests are Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Decision Making, AI Optimisation, Operations Research, Production and Operations Management, Distribution Coordination. To date, Prof. Chan has published over 16 book chapters, over 390 SCI refereed international journal papers and 320 peer reviewed international conference papers. His total number of citations > 11900, h Index =  56. Prof. Chan is a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong.

Based on the recent compilations (2020) and (2021) from a research group of Stanford about the impact of scientists (top 2% listed). The work is published in the following websites: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918; and doi: 10.17632/btchxktzyw.3. Prof. Felix Chan is categorized in the field of Operations Research, ranked 10 out of over 23,450 scientists worldwide, i.e. Top 0.04% worldwide, for TWO consecutive years (2020 and 2021).

Saurabh Pratap

Dr. Saurabh Pratap is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Jabalpur, M.P, India. Previously, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. He received his B. Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from Institute of Engineering and Technology, (India) and M. Tech degree in Production Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Durgapur (India) in the 2008 and 2011, respectively. He has completed his Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at IIT Kharagpur, India in 2016. He has authored several technical papers. His publications appeared in such journals as International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Computers and Industrial Engineering, Annals of Operation Research, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing and Maritime Economics and logistics. He carried out collaborative research with the Laboratory for production Management and Process in EPFL, Switzerland and the University of Hong Kong, HK. He is working as a reviewer for 21 renowned International Journals.