A fuzzy logic based decision support system for evaluation of suppliers in supply chain management practices

Supply chain management is an increasingly important organizational concern, and proper evaluation of suppliers constitutes one essential element of supply chain success. Continuous evaluation of a particular supplier becomes more important considering the fact that in most industries the cost of raw materials and component parts constitutes the main cost of a product, such that in some cases it can account for up to 70%. However, there is little research that has helped the organizations in continuous evaluation of their suppliers. We propose a new model, based on fuzzy logic to handle the various attributes, associated with supplier evaluation problems. Four multi-input single output (MISO) mamdani fuzzy inference systems have been proposed for supplier evaluation. The proposed model has also been illustrated through a case study. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.