Sustainable supplier selection in the oil and gas industry: An integrated multi-criteria decision making approach

Abstract

The goal of this study is to develop a comprehensive solution model based on an integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach as an alternative method capable of evaluating various elements for supplier selection (SS) in the Oil and Gas (O&G) industry. The problem of delays during resource extraction and refinement is one of the primary issues frequently experienced, this has a detrimental effect on O&G operations. MCDM is considered a decision-making technique effective for solving SS problems. In this study, an integrated approach has been proposed. A standard Delphi technique is used to first filter and rank unnecessary factors according to their relevance in order to determine the most significant and pertinent criteria for the oil and gas business. The best worst method (BWM) is adopted to address the criteria weight as it reduces the number of necessary pairwise comparisons while producing findings that are less inconsistent than those produced by other approaches and finally, TOPSIS is implemented for ranking the supplier as it makes full use of attribute information, provides a cardinal ranking of alternatives, and does not require independent attribute preferences. This study uses data obtained from the O&G industry. From the information obtained for thirty (30) O&G datasets based on business criteria, it was necessary to determine the most significant and pertinent. The standard Delphi technique was first employed to access and define the fifteen (15) most accessible criteria that were taken into consideration. Then with the best-worst method, the criteria weights were addressed and finally, TOPSIS was employed for supplier ranking. The decision-making units (01), unit (04), and unit (07) were considered to be the best suppliers. The novelty in this study is the implementation of an integrated MCDM model for sustainable SS in the O&G industry and its adaptation ability as a generic model applicable in other industrial sectors for SS.