Supplier Quality Evaluation Using a Fuzzy Multi Criteria Decision Making Approach - Complex System Modelling and Control Through Intelligent Soft Computations - page 196

culture, technology management, supplier participation, supply chain con guration

design, and strategic planning. The SCQ practices/activities/programs involve
supplier/buyer quality meeting, quality data and reporting, supply chain quality
of

ce, supply chain optimisation, and policy deployment. Theodorakioglou et al.
( 2006 ) investigate supplier management and its relationship to buyers quality

management through a survey study in the Greek manufacturing industry. They
found that intra-

'

rm adoption of the quality philosophy can lead rms to better

supplier management in the SCM context.
Forker ( 1997 ) conducted a survey study of 348 manufacturing firms to inves-

tigates factors affecting supplier quality performance and found that asset speci city

and organizational ef ciency at implementing total quality management hold great

promise. Trent et al. ( 1999 ) propose steps for achieving world-class supplier
quality. These include supply base optimization, supplier performance measure-
ment, aggressive supplier improvement targets, performance improvement rewards,
supplier certi

cation, supplier performance development, and involvement of
supplier in product and process design.
To deal with the lack of quantitative data for supplier quality evaluation, several
authors have coupled fuzzy theory (Zadeh 1965 ) with the above proposed
approaches. In fuzzy set theory, linguistic terms are used to represent decision
maker preferences (Zimmermann 2001 ). For example, it is much easier to represent
the quality performance of suppliers as good, very good, poor, very poor etc. than in
numbers. Ku et al. ( 2010 ) present a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy goal
programming based approach for global supplier selection. Liu et al. ( 2012 ) use
axiomatic fuzzy set and TOPSIS methodology for supplier selection. Kumar and
Mahapatra ( 2009 ) propose a fuzzy multi-criteria decision making approach for
supplier selection involving weighted decision makers preferences through an
AHP-TOPSIS like procedure. Kumar and Mahapatra ( 2011 ) propose a fuzzy multi-
criteria decision-making approach for supplier selection in supply chain manage-
ment in group decision making environment. Yang et al. ( 2008 ) study vendor
selection by integrated fuzzy MCDM techniques considering independent and
interdependent relationships. Dursun and Karsak ( 2013 ) use a QFD-based fuzzy
MCDM approach for supplier evaluation.

3 Solution Approach

Our proposed solution approach for evaluating supplier quality involves following
steps.

1. Selection of evaluation criteria for supplier quality assessment from multiple
perspectives.
2. Evaluation and selection of best supplier(alternative) using selected quality
criteria.