Evaluation and selection of large cardamom supply chain using fuzzy logic based decision‐making model

Abstract

AbstractLarge cardamom is a high‐value, low‐volume cash crop that is commercially important. The evaluation and selection of suppliers is a complicated and common multi‐criteria decision‐making challenge. Supplier selection becomes more difficult and unpredictable as a result of the necessity for human judgment in many areas of supplier selection, such as preferences for alternatives or supplier qualities. The objective of the study was to evaluate various large cardamom supply chains based on various supply chain quality parameters. The proposed selection strategy used fuzzy logic to identify the best acceptable supplier as well as rank the various supply chain parameters. The major steps of supply chain evaluation by fuzzy modeling involve the calculation of triplets for the score of various supply chains, calculation of triplets for the score of supply chain quality attributes, and calculation of overall membership function on a standard fuzzy scale. The results revealed that the proposed fuzzy logic method was well suited as a decision‐making tool for supplier evaluation. The assessment of various supply chains showed that the best supply chain management method included material moving from producers to consumers through aggregators, commission agents, wholesalers, and retailers. Comparing the overall similarity values of each chosen supply chain, customer satisfaction was ranked top among the quality attributes of the supply chain, followed by external and internal support, internal performance, and strategic and operational coordination. Consumers monitoring the performance of the supply chain can assist in information acquisition, influence the behavior of supply chain participants, and enhance overall performance.Practical applicationSelecting a suitable large cardamom supply chain would provide a solution for regulating the flow of products and information across the supply chain network. Implementing fuzzy logic for preferred supplier selection has a significant impact on the financial perspective. In the fuzzy logic for a large cardamom supply chain, fuzzy sets or membership functions were employed to express input space to output space. Fuzzification was used to transform a vector of crisp input data acquired from a study of a large cardamom supply chain into a vector of equivalent input language variables. The fuzzy output variables are defuzzified in the defuzzification process, and the fuzzy variables are turned into crisp values or crisp output vectors.