Exploiting GWmZd Model by Exploring Knowledge-Based Grey-Holistic Technique for Sustainable Vendor Evaluation

Abstract

It is investigated that the thoughts of sustainability gained the momentum among researchers in the present era. The industrial empirical research survey proved that green operations, waste minimization strategies, and zero defect planning are three potential pillars in mapping the sustainability of supplier/vendor units. The authors built and proposed a grey knowledge-based green-waste minimizing and zero defect (GWmZd) sustainability appraisement hierarchical structural evaluation model/framework to production companies for assessing the sustainability ratio of their candidate suppliers/partners. Due to the uncertainty associated with the measures and metrics of the proposed model, the incomplete information is procured from a cluster of professionals’ vs GWmZd measures and metrics in the terms of the grey (except fuzzy) set. It is sensed by the prior literature survey that a few grey knowledge-based sustainability model are framed, but they were constrained to the individual first level layer without weight evaluation cum noncomparative analysis-based modern technique, and it is respected as a major research gap and challenge. To compensate the major research gap, the authors elected AHP and enabled AHP (analytic hierarchy process) to materialize and aggregate the assigned rating of each expert for evaluating weights of 2nd level metrics (overcoming the drawback of combined/group ratings). Later, the authors structured and proposed a new mathematical equation, assisted authors to evaluate the global weight of the first layer-three pillars-measures of the proposed model. Eventually, the authors constructed and fruitfully implemented a grey-holistic technique (merger of grey-MOORA-FMF fused with the dominance theory) on the model to compute sustainability index and score of suppliers. A production company is investigated to exhibit the application of the research work practically. The sustainability of supplier A1 is found the best than the residue of suppliers. The research forum can be explored by production companies to opt the feasible supplier under the proposed model. The conducted research has a value across the global production companies. The research forum can be explored by managers of production companies for benchmarking the performance of global suppliers under GWmZd and future advancing models along with grey-holistic technique fused with the dominance theory.