Sustainable supplier selection under attractive criteria through FIS and integrated fuzzy MCDM techniques

Figures & data

Table 1. Sustainable supplier selection methodologies with integrated fuzzy set theory

Author’s	Research objective	Proposed approach	Sustainability dimension	Criteria clustering
Ghadimi, Dargi, and Heavey (2017)	Evaluate and select the most sustainable supplier	Audition checklist and FIS	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Mavi, Goh, & Zarbakhshnia, (2017)	Third-party reverse logistic provider evaluation.	Fuzzy SWARA and Fuzzy MOORA	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Rao, Goh, and Zheng (2017)	sustainable supplier selection based	Linguistic 2-tuple grey correlation degree.	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Fallahpour, Olugu, Musa, Wong, & Noori, (2017)	identify the most sustainable supplier with	Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Singh, Olugu, and Fallahpour (2014)	evaluation of manufacturing sustainability of small and medium enterprises	Fuzzy Inference System	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Amir Hossein Azadnia, Zameri, Saman, & Wong, (2015)	Sustainable supplier selection and order allocation combined with multi-period multi-product lot-sizing problem.	Fuzzy AHP and multi-objective mathematical programming	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Kannan, (2018)	Sustainable supplier selection	Fuzzy Delphi, ISM, ANP, COPRAS-G	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Awasthi et al., (2018)	Globally sustainable supplier selection.	Fuzzy AHP, fuzzy VIKOR,	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Pishchulov et al. (2019)	Sustainable supplier selection	Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process (VAHP)	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Rashidi and Cullinane (2019)	Sustainable supplier selection	Fuzzy DEA and fuzzy TOPSIS	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Khan et al. (2018)	Supplier sustainability performance evaluation and selection	fuzzy-Shannon Entropy and fuzzy- Inference system	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered
Mohammed, Harris, and Govindan (2019)	Sustainable supplier selection and order allocation	Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS	Economic, social and environmental	Not considered

Table 2. Linguistic terms for supplier’s evaluation

Linguistic terms	Fuzzy set
Worst	(a, a, b)
Average	(a, b, c)
Best	(b, c, c)

Table 3. Fuzzy mathematical operations

Fuzzy mathematical operation	Fuzzy operation	Mathematical evaluation
Fuzzy addition	Z1$\oplus$Z2	(l1 + l2, m1+ m2, u1+ u2)
Fuzzy subtraction	Z1⊝Z2	(l1 – u2, m1- m2, u1- l2)
Fuzzy division	Z1$\oslash$Z2	(l1/u2, m1/m2, u1/l2)
Fuzzy multiplication	Z1⊗Z2	(l1 * l2, m1 * m2, u1 *u2)
Inverse	Z1–1	(l1, m1, u1)-1 ≈ (1/u1, 1/m1, 1/l1)

Figure 1. Flow chart of proposed decision frame work

Figure 2. Triangular membership function

Table 4. Details of Decision maker’s team

Decision maker	Department	Designation	Experience in years
Decision maker 1	Materials management	Senior manager	13
Decision maker 2	Materials management	Deputy general manager	21
Decision maker 3	Materials management	Assistant general manager	17
Decision maker 4	Materials management	Manager	9
Decision maker 5	Materials management	Assistant general manager	17
Decision maker 6	Finance	Senior manager	13
Decision maker 7	Stores management	Assistant general manager	17
Decision maker 8	Quality control	Manager	9

Table 5. Subclassified Attractive cluster sustainability criteria

Economic criteria	Attractive criteria
	Less attractive (A1)	Attractive (A2)	Highly attractive (A3)
	• Training Aid	• Warranties and claim policies	• Product development
	• Political situation	• Amount of past business	• JIT
		• Long term relationship	• Reciprocal arrangement
			• Packaging ability
Environmental criteria	• End of pipe	• Green	• Carbon footprint tax
	• Environmental training	warehousing	• Green transportation
Social criteria	• Society	• Wages	• Human resource capability

Table 6. Criteria, sub-criteria and quantification levels in three sustainability dimensions

Economic sustainability criteria
Attractive	Criteria	Sub-criteria	Best	Average	Worst
	Warranties and claim policies (CA1)	Supplier recovery percentage (CA11)	Supplier recovery percentage is more than 90 %	Supplier recovery percentage is more than 75 % but less than 90% percent	Supplier recovery percentage is more than 60 % but less than 75 % percent
		Claim frequency (CA12)	The claim frequency is 1 in 1 million considering six sigma model	Claim frequency is more than 1 but less than 3	Claim frequency is more than 3
	Amount of past business (CA2)	Growth of net worth, the average of the last 3 years (CA21)	Growth of net worth taking the average of the last 3 years is more than 25%	Growth of net worth taking the average of the last 3 years is more than 10% but less than 25%	Growth of net worth taking the average of the last 3 years is less than 10%.
		Profitability (before tax) (CA22)	Profitability (before tax) of the supplier is more than 20%	Profitability (before tax) of the supplier is more than 10% but less than 20%	Profitability (before tax) of the supplier is less than 10%.
		The average amount of business in the last 3 years (CA23)	The industry has done the business of more than 5% of the total business of the industry (as an average of last 3 years)	The industry has done the business of more than 2% but less than 5% (of the total business of the industry (as an average of last 3 years)	The industry has done the business of less than 2% of the total business of the industry (as an average of last 3 years)
	Long term relationship (CA3)	Duration of business association (CA3)	The supplier has more than 10 years of business relations with the industry and also contributes by participating in strategic decisions of the industry.	The supplier has more than 5 years but less than 10 years of business terms and performance level is as per standard norms of the industry.	The supplier is a new entrant and has less than 5 years of business relations with industry.
Highly Attractive	Product development (CHA1)	Degree Of Supplier Integration (CHA11)	Black box approach	Gray box approach	White box approach
		Time of Supplier Integration (CHA12)	Supplier integration is done at the idea generation stage of NPD	Supplier integration is done at the product/process service concept development stage	Supplier integration is done at the prototype building stage (last stage) of NPD.
	JIT (CHA2)	JIT Index	JIT index ranges from 1.0 to 1.02	JIT index ranges from 1.02 to 1.04	JIT index for the supplier is more than 1.04
	Reciprocal arrangement (CHA3)		Mutually reciprocal arrangement (The amount of reciprocal business is more than 15%)	Mutually reciprocal arrangement. (The amount of reciprocal business is more than 5% but less than 15%)	Mutually reciprocal arrangement. (The amount of reciprocal business is 5%)
	Packaging ability (CHA4)		The material used by the supplier for packaging is more than 40% but less than 100% reusable/recycle/biodegradable	The material used by the supplier for packaging is more than 20% but less than 40% reusable/recycle/biodegradable	The material used by the supplier for packaging is less than 20% reusable/recycle/biodegradable
Environmental sustainability criteria
Attractive	Green warehousing (EA1)	Lighting system (EA11)	The warehouse is having a balanced combination of natural sunlight and artificial lighting system and is controlled by automatic controls like motion and light sensors.	The warehouse has a balanced combination of natural and artificial alights but lack the automated controllers.	The warehouse does not have a proper lighting system.
		Water consumption (EA12)	The warehouse has implemented a water harvesting system and more than 80% percent water requirements are fulfilled by rainwater.	The warehouse has implemented a water harvesting system and more than 50% but less than 80% percent water requirements are fulfilled by rainwater.	The warehouse has implemented a water harvesting system and less than 50% percent water requirements are fulfilled by rainwater.
Highly Attractive	Carbon footprint tax (EA2)		The supplier has ISO 14,067:2018 certification	The supplier does not have an ISO 14,067:2018 within the time span of 1 year	The supplier does not have ISO 14,067:2018 and have not planned to obtain the certification in the next 3 years.
	Green transportation (EA3)		Supplier utilises more than 50% but less than 100% mode of green transport to supply the materials.	Supplier utilises more than 20% but less than 50% mode of green transport to supply the materials.	Supplier utilises less than 20% mode of green transport to supply the materials.
Social sustainability criteria
Attractive	Wages (SA1)		The probability that the supplier gives wages to the employees in accordance with the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 of the Indian constitution is between 90% to 100 %	The probability that the supplier gives wages to the employees in accordance with the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 of the Indian constitution is between 80% to 95%	The probability that the supplier gives wages to the employees in accordance with the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 of the Indian constitution is between 75% to 85 %
Highly Attractive	Human resource capability (SHA1)		The supplier has a code of conduct for SHRD and more than 15% of supplier’s employee have undergone training under SHRD	more than 5% but less than 15% of supplier’s employee have undergone training under SHRD	Less than 5% of the supplier’s employee has undergone training under SHRD

Figure 3. FIS engines for sustainability criteria in economic, environmental and social dimensions

Figure 4. Membership function for suppliers performance target range

Figure 5. Performance index target range

Table 7. Rules examples from rule base for Warranties and claim policies criteria

Rule No.	Rules
Rule 1	If the supplier recovery percentage is Best AND claim frequency is Best then the output is Best
Rule 2	If the supplier recovery percentage is Best AND claim frequency is Average then the output is Best
Rule 3	If the supplier recovery percentage is Best AND claim frequency is Worst then the output is Average
Rule 4	If the supplier recovery percentage is Average AND claim frequency is Best then the output is Best
Rule 5	If the supplier recovery percentage is Average AND claim frequency is Best then the output is Average
Rule 6	If the supplier recovery percentage is Average AND claim frequency is Worst then the output is Worst
Rule 7	If the supplier recovery percentage is Worst AND claim frequency is Best then the output is Average
Rule 8	If the supplier recovery percentage is Worst AND claim frequency is Best then the output is Worst
Rule 9	If the supplier recovery percentage is Worst AND claim frequency is Best then the output is Worst

Table 8. Suppliers assessment values for criteria and sub-criteria by decision makers

Economic criteria
Attractive	Criteria	Sub-criteria	Supplier 1	Supplier 2	Supplier 3	Supplier 4
	Warranties and claim policies (CA1)	Supplier recovery percentage (CA11)	75	90	65	80
		Claim frequency (CA12)	5	1	4	2
	Amount of past business (CA2)	The growth of net worth, the average of the last 3 years (CA21)	20	24	10	15
		Profitability (before tax) (CA22)	10	19	15	10
		The average amount of business in the last 3 years (CA23)	2	5	2	3
	Long term relationship (CA3)	Duration of business association (CA3)	5	10	8	6
Highly Attractive	Product development (CHA1)	Degree Of Supplier Integration (CHA11)	8	10	5	9
		Time of Supplier Integration (CHA12)	5	9	5	2
	JIT (CHA2)	JIT Index	1.02	1.01	1.04	1.0
	Reciprocal arrangement (CHA3)		5	13	11	12
	Packaging ability (CHA4)		10	70	60	90
Environmental criteria
Attractive	Green warehousing (EA1)	Lighting system (EA11)	1	9	7	6
		Water consumption (EA12)	10	90	50	70
Highly Attractive	Carbon footprint tax (EA2)		2	8	5	5
	Green transportation (EA3)		10	70	10	10
Social Criteria
Attractive	Wages (SA1)		85	85	75	95
Highly Attractive	Human resource capability (SHA1)		12	12	5	14

Table 9. Performance index values in three susinability dimensions through FIS

	Performance index in the economic dimension (PIED)			Performance index in Environmental Dimension (PIEND)			Performance index in Social Dimension (PISD)
Supplier	Calculated values	Normalised values	Ranks	Calculated values	Normalised values	Ranks	Calculated values	Normalised values		Ranks	SPI	Overall Ranks
1	3.999	0.1573	4	2.0827	0.1016	4	1.564		0.081	3	0.12534	4
2	8.917	0.3509	1	8.9083	0.4347	1	7.725		0.401	2	0.38608	1
3	7	0.2754	2	5.5	0.2684	2	1.489		0.077	4	0.23363	3
4	5.5	0.2164	3	3.9995	0.1951	3	8.47		0.44	1	0.25476	2

Table 10. Fuzzy scale for AHP and TOPSIS

Level of importance (aij)	Linguistic response	The linguistic definition for comparison of the i^th and the j^th items	Fuzzy scale (l,m,u)
1	Very Low (VL)	The i^th item is equally important as the j^th item	(1,1,1)
3	Low (L)	The i^th item is slightly more important than the j^th item	(2,3,4)
5	Average (A)	The i^th item is more important than the j^th item	(4,5,6)
7	High(H)	The i^th item is strongly more important than the j^th item	(6,7,8)
9	Very High (VH)	The i^th item is extremely more important than the j^th item	(9,9,9)
The intermediate values between two adjacent judgements
2			(1,2,3)
4			(3,4,5)
6			(5,6,7)
8			(7,8,9)
1/aij = aji	The inverse comparison between the i^th and the j^th items		($\frac{1}{u},1\text{overm},\frac{1}{l}$)

Table 11. Priority weighs for attractive economic criteria

					fuzzified weights
	Warranties and claim policies (CA1)	Amount of past business (CA2)	Long term relationship (CA3)	Priority weights	l	m	u
Warranties and claim policies (CA1)	1	5	7	0.7235060	0.560	0.731	0.934
Amount of past business (CA2)	0.20	1	3	0.1931860	0.135	0.188	0.277
Long term relationship (CA3)	0.142857143	0.333333333	1	0.0833078	0.061	0.081	0.112
ʎ max = 3.065819	CI = 0.0329	RI = 0.58	CR = 0.0567402

Table 12. Global weights of sustainability criteria and sub-criteria by FAHP method

Economic criteria
Attractive	Criteria	Local weights			Sub-criteria	Local Weights			Global Weights
	Warranties and claim policies (CA1)	0.56	0.731	0.934	Supplier recovery percentage (CA11)	0.678	0.833	1.017	0.0615	0.1633	0.3953
					Claim frequency (CA12)	0.138	0.167	0.208	0.01354	0.03200	0.07247
	Amount of past business (CA2)	0.135	0.188	0.277	Growth of net worth, the average of last 3 years (CA21)	0.154	0.223	0.324	0.02599	0.06733	0.16142
					Profitability (before tax) (CA22)	0.061	0.081	0.112	0.0615	0.1633	0.3953
					The average amount of business in the last 3 years (CA23)	0.445	0.616	0.816	0.0615	0.1633	0.3953
	Long term relationship (CA3)	0.061	0.081	0.112					0.01354	0.03200	0.07247
Highly Attractive	Product development (CHA1)	0.455	0.607	0.796	Degree Of Supplier Integration (CHA11)	0.522	0.750	1.045	0.0869	0.3035	0.9134
					Time of supplier Integration (CHA12)	0.185	0.250	0.369	0.0308	0.1012	0.3225
	JIT (CHA2)	0.168	0.245	0.36	JIT Index				0.0615	0.1633	0.3953
	Reciprocal arrangement (CHA3)	0.037	0.048	0.066					0.01354	0.03200	0.07247
	Packaging ability (CHA4)	0.071	0.101	0.147					0.02599	0.06733	0.16142
Environmental
Attractive	Green warehousing (EA1)	1	1	1	Lighting system (EA11)	0.678	0.833	1.017	0.1433	0.2777	0.6448
					Water consumption (EA12)	0.138	0.167	0.208	0.0292	0.0557	0.1319
Highly Attractive	Carbon footprint tax (EA2)	0.757	0.875	1.009					0.2771	0.5833	1.1080
	Green transportation (EA3)	0.109	0.125	0.146					0.0399	0.0833	0.1603
SOCIAL
Attractive	Wages (SA1)	1	1	1					0.211323	0.333333	0.633976
Highly Attractive	Human resource capability (SHA1)	1	1	1					0.366024	0.666667	1.098084

Table 13. SPI values of sustainability dimension through fuzzy TOPSIS

		SUPPLIER 1	SUPPLIER 2	SUPPLIER 3	SUPPLIER 4
Economic	Di*	0.3141	0.1280	0.2796	0.1405
	Di^−	0.1406	0.3115	0.1997	0.3070
	CCi (PIED)	0.3093	0.7088	0.4166	0.6859
	Normalised (PIED)	0.1458	0.3342	0.1965	0.3235
RANKS	4	1	3	2
Environmental	Di*	0.2204	0.1025	0.1384	0.1244
	Di^−	0.1030	0.2049	0.1046	0.2916
	CCi (PIEND)	0.3185	0.6666	0.4304	0.7010
	Normalised (PIEND)	0.1505	0.3150	0.2034	0.3312
	RANKS	4	2	3	1
Social	Di*	0.3455	0.1548	0.2493	0.0481
	Di^−	0.0325	0.2851	0.1906	0.3583
	CCi (PISD)	0.0861	0.6481	0.4332	0.8816
	Normalised (PISD)	0.0420	0.3163	0.2114	0.4303
	RANKS	4	2	3	1
SPI through fuzzy MCDM		0.1265	0.3249	0.2015	0.3471
Overall Ranks		4	2	3	1

Table 14. Final ranks of the suppliers

	SPI by FIS approach	SPI by Integrated fuzzy MCDM approach	Calculated SPI	Final Ranks
Supplier 1	0.12534	0.126468	0.1259	4
Supplier 2	0.38608	0.32486	0.3555	1
Supplier 3	0.23363	0.201527	0.2176	3
Supplier 4	0.25476	0.347145	0.3010	2

Table 15. Ranks position for suppliers

	Economic Dimension		Environmental Dimension		Social Dimension		Overall ranks		Final Ranks
Supplier	FIS	Fuzzy MCDM	FIS	Fuzzy MCDM	FIS	Fuzzy MCDM	FIS	Fuzzy MCDM
1	4	4	4	4	3	4	4	4	4
2	1	1	1	2	2	2	1	2	1
3	2	3	2	3	4	3	3	3	3
4	3	2	3	1	1	1	2	1	2

Ghadimi, P., A. Dargi, and C. Heavey. 2017. “Sustainable Supplier Performance Scoring Using Audition Check-List Based Fuzzy Inference System: A Case Application in Automotive Spare Part Industry.” Computers & Industrial Engineering 105 (March): 12–27. doi:10.1016/j.cie.2017.01.002.

 Google Scholar

Mavi, R. K., M. Goh, and N. Zarbakhshnia. 2017. “Sustainable Third-Party Reverse Logistic Provider Selection with Fuzzy SWARA and Fuzzy MOORA in Plastic Industry.” The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 91 (5–8): 2401–2418. doi:10.1007/s00170-016-9880-x.

 PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Rao, C., M. Goh, and J. Zheng. 2017. “Decision Mechanism for Supplier Selection under Sustainability.” International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making 16 (1): 87–115. doi:10.1142/S0219622016500450.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Fallahpour, A., E. U. Olugu, S. N. Musa, K. Y. Wong, and S. Noori. 2017. “A Decision Support Model for Sustainable Supplier Selection in Sustainable Supply Chain Management.” Computers and Industrial Engineering 105: 391–410. doi:10.1016/j.cie.2017.01.005.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Singh, S., E. U. Olugu, and A. Fallahpour. 2014. “Fuzzy-Based Sustainable Manufacturing Assessment Model for SMEs.” Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy 16 (5): 847–860. doi:10.1007/s10098-013-0676-5.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Azadnia, A.H., M.Z.M. Saman, and K.Y. Wong. 2015. “Sustainable Supplier Selection and order Lot-sizing: an Integrated Multi-objective Decision-making Process.” International Journal of Production Research 53 (2): 383–408. doi:10.1080/00207543.2014.935827.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Kannan, D. 2018. “Role of Multiple Stakeholders and the Critical Success Factor Theory for the Sustainable Supplier Selection Process.”International Journal of Production Economics 195: 391–418. doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.02.020.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Awasthi, A., K. Govindan, and S. Gold. 2018. “Multi-tier Sustainable Global Supplier Selection Using a Fuzzy Ahp-vikor Based Approach.” International Journal of Production Economics 195: 106–117. doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.10.013.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Pishchulov, G., A. Trautrims, T. Chesney, S. Gold, and L. Schwab. 2019. “The Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process Revisited: a Revised Method with Application to Sustainable Supplier Selection.” International Journal of Production Economics 211 (May): 166–179. doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2019.01.025.

 Google Scholar

Rashidi, K., and K. Cullinane. 2019. “A Comparison of Fuzzy DEA and Fuzzy TOPSIS in Sustainable Supplier Selection: Implications for Sourcing Strategy.” Expert Systems with Applications 121: 266–281. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2018.12.025.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Khan, S.A., S. Kusi-Sarpong, F.K. Arhin, and H. Kusi-Sarpong. 2018. “Supplier Sustainability Performance Evaluation and Selection.” A Framework and Methodology.” Journal of Cleaner Production 205: 964–979. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.09.144.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Mohammed, A., I. Harris, and K. Govindan. 2019. “A Hybrid MCDM-FMOO Approach for Sustainable Supplier Selection and order Allocation.” International Journal of Production Economics 217: 171–184. doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2019.02.003.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar