Abstract:
Due to intensification of market competence and customers increasing socio-environmental concerns, sustainability
has become a focal point for most organizations. Thus incorporation of customer sustainable expectations
into the conventional supplier selection process has become necessary for manufacturers to sustain in the
competitive market. To cope with this issue, it is necessary to model the customers’ opinions and expectations
into the strategic supplier selection and order allocation decision making, an area not delved upon much in the
literature. Therefore, the aim of the study is to develop an analytical model for manufacturing firm for selection
of suppliers based on customers’ expectations which are reflected as retailers’ expectation level and also for
bringing in financial and socio-environmental stability to the whole SC. The research methodology adopted
involves 1) use of fuzzy-TOPSIS technique using Z numbers for evaluation of suppliers based on traditional as
well as social environmental attributes which reflect customer's social and green expectations, 2) development of
a novel bi-objective mathematical model for selecting suppliers meeting the expectation levels, allocating orders
proportionate to the performance scores of the suppliers, rewarding or penalizing the suppliers as per their
sustainable performance, 3) Transformation of the bi-objective model into a weighted goal programming model
for attaining a trade-off solution between the objectives of minimization of cost and maximization of sustainable
value of purchase. To exemplify the efficacy of the model, case of electronics sector is presented. The findings of
the result suggest that penalty and reward value incorporated in the cost objective system is effective in enhancing
the sustainable performance of the suppliers and can prove to be an effective strategy for DMs. The
study recommends that the proposed mathematical model can considerably aid the manufacturer in integrating
supplier selection and order allocation decisions while optimizing the performance of the customer oriented
supply chain.
