Abstract
Materials constitute a large proportion of the total project cost and the absence of right materials in the right quantities and quality on site when needed is one of the most commonly experienced causes of delays in construction projects. Although supplier selection is a strategic issue, contractors generally select suppliers based on their past experiences, which may result in selecting wrong suppliers. Supplier selection decision is generally made by multiple decision makers and is affected by several criteria. Therefore, selecting the right supplier among many alternatives considering several compromising and conflicting criteria is a multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problem. This paper proposes an integrated fuzzy MCGDM approach, which employs fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) together, for the supplier selection problem. In the proposed approach, fuzzy AHP is used to analyse the structure of the supplier selection problem and to determine the weights of the criteria, and the fuzzy TOPSIS method is employed to rank the alternative suppliers. The proposed approach is applied to a problem of selecting the most appropriate rail supplier and company management found the proposed decision approach satisfactory and implementable in future supplier selection problems.
Highlights
A construction project highly depends on having the right people with right skills and the right materials and equipment in the right place at the right time that are required to complete the project on time and on budget
Supplier selection is generally made by multiple decision makers, whose thoughts are imprecise and uncertain
This study aims to overcome the shortcomings of the previous studies and proposes the integration of two wellknown MCDM methods modified with fuzzy set theory, namely fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy TOPSIS, for solving the supplier selection problem in construction
Summary
A construction project highly depends on having the right people with right skills and the right materials and equipment in the right place at the right time that are required to complete the project on time and on budget. The main problems resulting from poor construction materials management can be summarized as follows: failure to order on time, delivery at the wrong time, errors in quantity take-offs, receiving wrong materials, lost or damaged materials, theft of materials from delivery into production, and double handling (Donyavi, Flanagan 2009) Most of these problems can be overcome by a proper purchasing process. Construction companies should take into account the price and several compromising and conflicting criteria, e.g., quality of products and services, delivery flexibility, performance history, warranties, technical capability and financial position, in the supplier selection decision-making process (Benton, McHenry 2010; Samarasinghe et al 2012; Plebankiewicz, Kubek 2016). In order to illustrate how the proposed approach can be used in a real situation, it was applied to a problem of selecting the most appropriate supplier to be worked with in an international railway construction project
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