Supplier Selection using Multi-criteria Decision Making Approaches: A Current Review

Selection of supplier is one of the most important decisions in purchasing. An inappropriate decision on supplier may affect the whole supply chain management. Decision making can be a stressful process as the performance of potential suppliers is evaluated based on multi-criteria. Various multicriteria decision making approaches have been proposed to solve supplier selection problem. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of supplier selection using multi-criteria decision making approaches from 2009 to 2013. The present paper extends the previous reviews by gathering related articles appearing in the international journals and conferences proceedings. Two classifications of individual approaches and integrated approaches were made in this paper. This review aids the researchers and decision makers in applying the approaches effectively. From the observation, it was noticed that six papers or 19 percent were using individual approaches against 25 papers or 81 percent of integrated approaches. About 48 percent of approaches in the category of integrated approaches were decision making method based on fuzzy set theory. The reviews also notice that 25 out of 31 papers (81%) considered quality as the most important criterion in supplier selection process. This paper offers useful information for other researchers since it provides the latest evidence of decision making approaches in supplier selection.