استفاده از فرایند شبکه تحلیلی فازی برای انتخاب تامین کننده یک سازمان تولیدگر

The contemporary manufacturing organisations are forced to adopt advanced manufacturing paradigms for sustaining in the global markets. Supply chain management is an essential ingredient of advanced manufacturing systems since outsourcing gains vital importance. Supplier selection is a vital issue concerned in the process of managing global supply chains. A conceptual model for supplier selection encompassing various criteria and sub-criteria has been developed. In this article, fuzzy analytic network process (fuzzy ANP) approach has been used for the supplier selection process. The case study has been carried out in an Indian electronics switches manufacturing company. Based on supplier selection weighted index, the best supplier has been determined. This is followed by the conduct of sensitivity analysis as well as questionnaire-based validation. The results of the validation study indicated that the application of fuzzy ANP is practically feasible and adaptable in the contemporary industrial scenario.

Increasing competition has been forcing the manufacturing organisation to respond to dynamic demands of the customers (Cater, 2005). Contemporary manufacturing paradigms such as Agile Manufacturing demand the concept of outsourcing by adopting the principles of supply chain management (Gunasekaran, Lai, & Cheng, 2008). Supply chain encompasses all activities associated with the flow and transformation of goods from the raw material stage through to the end user as well as the associated information flows. Supply chain focuses on the improvement of customer service, profitability and business performance. Strategic partnership with better suppliers needs to be formed to improve quality, flexibility as well as to reduce lead time. Supplier selection is a cross-functional group decision making problem ensuring long-term commitment for the organisation. The problem of supplier selection is a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem in the presence of many criteria and sub-criteria. A decision maker needs to make use one of the MCDM methods (Ayag & Ozdemir, 2009). Some of the widely used MCDM methods include analytic hierarchy process (AHP), analytic network process (ANP), strategy aligned fuzzy simple multi-attribute rating technique (SMART) (Chou & Chang, 2008), grey relational analysis (GRA). AHP is a hierarchically structured technique that concentrates, compares and evaluates the influence of various elements on the objectives. But practical decision making problems cannot be structured hierarchically because the interactions and dependencies are involved across the elements at various levels. This situation necessitated a holistic approach. ANP is a technique that overcomes the limitations of AHP. A holistic approach like ANP is required if all the attributes and alternatives are networked in a system to accept various dependencies. Two types of ANP include conventional and fuzzy type. In conventional ANP, pairwise comparisons at each level with respect to the objective of best supplier selection are conducted using a 9-point Saaty scale (Guneri, Cengiz, & Seker, 2009). The drawbacks associated with conventional ANP include crisp decision making, unbalanced judgement scale, imprecise and subjective judgement. Due to the vagueness and uncertain decision making with conventional ANP, the concept of fuzzy ANP is found to be advantageous. Fuzzy ANP replaces the hierarchies into a networked structure, in which all elements are interlinked (Chang, Wey, & Tseng, 2009). Due to this reason, fuzzy ANP has been used in this research project. The case study has been conducted in an Indian electronics switches manufacturing company. The experiences of the conduct of this case study with a focus on best supplier selection have been presented in the following sections of this article.

The manufacturing organisations in contemporary scenario have been witnessing rapid transformation in their manufacturing pattern. The manufacturing pattern has been changed from mass manufacturing to mass customised manufacturing (Gunasekaran, 1999). In mass customised as well as in advanced manufacturing paradigms, outsourcing is an essential ingredient of business practices. In this context, the supplier selection process gains extreme importance. Various approaches are available for supplier selection. Fuzzy ANP approach has been used in this project to select the best supplier so as to enable the manufacturing organisation to achieve their business objectives in the supply chain practices. The unique features of fuzzy ANP include the development of pairwise comparison matrices, utilisation of interdependencies among decision levels and development of more reliable solutions (Ayag & Ozdemir, 2009). Extreme care has to be ensured in the supplier selection process because any wrong decision in supplier selection may lead to the risk of losing market share and profit margin of the organisation. The case study reported in this article has been validated using two approaches which indicated the practical feasibility and practical adaptability of this approach in the contemporary industrial scenario.