A Hybrid MCDM Approach towards Resilient Sourcing

TLDR: The research outcome revealed that the TBC of “trust” is the most important criterion, followed by the “cost”, leaving the ”geographical location” criterion as the least important one.

Abstract: Achieving a supply chain that is resilient to potential unforeseen disruptions (e.g., strikes, floods, tsunamis, etc.) remains one of the vital concerns of decision makers (DMs). To build up a reactive supply chain plan towards resilience, the purchasing department needs to pay the strictest attention to sourcing decisions. This study contributes to the literature through developing an efficient resilient supplier selection approach based on a new holistic framework that enables the identification of key resilience pillars (RPs) and traditional business criteria (TBC) in light of a thorough literature review and experts’ opinions. To this end, the relative importance of TBC/RP was measured by applying the DEMATEL (D) method. This was followed by the application of MABAC-OCRA-TOPSIS-VIKOR (MOTV) methods to verify the suppliers’ ranking. Furthermore, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (SRCC) approach was used to investigate the correlation among the suppliers’ ranking, revealed via the four methods. In this work, a real sourcing problem of scrap metal for a steel manufacturing company was solved to prove the applicability of the proposed approach. The research outcome revealed that the TBC of “trust” is the most important criterion, followed by the “cost”, leaving the “geographical location” criterion as the least important one. In this context, the RP of “flexibility” attained the highest relative weight compared to “agility”, which secured the lowest weight. The results also showed “absolute” correlation among MABAC, VIKOR, and OCRA compared to “very strong” correlation between TOPSIS and the others. This research can support supply chain managers to achieve supply chain systems that reduce not only sourcing costs, but also potential losses because of disrupting threats, by building resilient supply chains.