Flexible dynamic sustainable procurement model

Abstract

Management of global supply chains is a challenging task due to the uncertainties leading to supply chain disruption. This requires the supply chains to be not only effective and efficient but also flexible in their operations to mitigate these disruptions. It has been observed that supply chains are mostly influenced by suppliers and carriers; hence, a business firm needs to be flexible and sustainable in selection of suppliers and carriers to overcome any disruptions. This paper proposes a flexible dynamic sustainable procurement (FDSP) framework for global supply chains by considering not only qualitative parameters such as quality, reliability, social and environmental factors for the selection of suppliers as well as carriers but also taking into account quantitative preferences such as cost, supplier capacity and carrier capacity. However, independently using quantitative parameters might allocate order quantities to the suppliers and carriers which are least preferred based on other qualitative parameters. Therefore, the proposed FDSP model provides flexibility by integrating the quantitative and qualitative parameters to allocate order quantities to suppliers and carriers preferred by both the sets. Hence, the proposed FDSP model provides a range of possible integrated solutions and business firm can select the best suited solution having least deviation. The deviations are computed from integrated optimal solution provided by FDSP and quantitative models. The proposed FDSP model is solved for a case illustration to demonstrate the proposed framework.