Hesitant Fuzzy SWARA-Complex Proportional Assessment Approach for Sustainable Supplier Selection (HF-SWARA-COPRAS)

Pratibha Rani,Kattur Soundarapandian Ravichandran,Arunodaya Raj Mishra,Raghunathan Krishankumar,Abbas Mardani,Karthikeyan Balasubramanian,Fausto Cavallaro

doi:10.3390/sym12071152

Abstract

The selection of sustainable supplier is an extremely important for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). The assessment process of sustainable supplier selection is a complicated task for decision experts due to involvement of several qualitative and quantitative criteria. As the uncertainty is commonly occurred in sustainable supplier selection problem and hesitant fuzzy set (HFS), an improvement of Fuzzy Set (FS), has been proved as one of the efficient and superior ways to express the uncertain information arisen in practical problems. The present study proposes a novel framework based on COPRAS (Complex Proportional Assessment) method and SWARA (Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) approach to evaluate and select the desirable sustainable supplier within the HFSs context. In the proposed method, an extended SWARA method is employed for determining the criteria weights based on experts’ preferences. Next, to illustrate the efficiency and practicability of the proposed methodology, an empirical case study of sustainable supplier selection problem is taken under Hesitant Fuzzy (HF) environment. Further, sensitivity analysis is performed to check the stability of the presented methodology. At last, a comparison with existing methods is conducted to verify the strength of the obtained result. The final outcomes confirm that the developed framework is more consistent and powerful than other existing approaches.

Highlights

With the increasing public concern over the environment and strict government policies, lean and green thinking has emerged as an attractive scheme to increase the profitability for businesses and to improve the environmental protection [1,2]
Due to the growing economy, urbanization, competition among enterprises intensifying and increasing concern about social responsibility, the selection of Sustainable Supplier (SS) is an important decision in sustainable development
This study presents a novel integrated framework based on the Hesitant Fuzzy (HF)-entropy measure, Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) approach, and Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) method to handle the Sustainable Supplier Selection (SSS) problems

Summary

Introduction

With the increasing public concern over the environment and strict government policies, lean and green thinking has emerged as an attractive scheme to increase the profitability for businesses and to improve the environmental protection [1,2]. Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) is a broader idea which aims to enhance the company’s social, economic, and environmental objectives and eliminate the waste of resources [3,4,5]. In order to meet the sustainability policies, the selection of most Sustainable Supplier (SS) is one of the important and critical decisions for companies [9,10]. Sustainable supplier selection (SSS) is a significant operational activity of SSCM. SSS is a key factor for enterprises seeking to achieve sustainable development. Compared with the traditional supplier selection process, SSS should consider a supplier’s economic performance, such as product quality, price, transportation, after-sales service, and production management, and consider their environmental protection, energy-saving performance and social responsibility [1]

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion