Selection of optimal supplier in supply chain management strategy with analytic network process and choquet integral

Selection of appropriate suppliers in supply chain management strategy (SCMS) is a challenging issue because it requires battery of evaluation criteria/attributes, which are characterized with complexity, elusiveness, and uncertainty in nature. This paper proposes a novel hierarchical evaluation framework to assist the expert group to select the optimal supplier in SCMS. The rationales for the evaluation framework are based upon (i) multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) analysis that can select the most appropriate alternative from a finite set of alternatives with reference to multiple conflicting criteria, (ii) analytic network process (ANP) technique that can simultaneously take into account the relationships of feedback and dependence of criteria, and (iii) choquet integral—a non-additive fuzzy integral that can eliminate the interactivity of expert subjective judgment problems. A case PCB manufacturing firm is studied and the results indicated that the proposed evaluation framework is simple and reasonable to identify the primary criteria influencing the SCMS, and it is effective to determine the optimal supplier even with the interactive and interdependent criteria/attributes. This hierarchical evaluation framework provides a complete picture in SCMS contexts to both researchers and practitioners.