Yousef Mohammad Karimi - Shahid Beheshti University, Department of Management, Tehran-IRAN

The objective of this paper is to identify suppliers with the highest potential for meeting a company’s needs consistently and at an acceptable cost for a manufacturing company dealing with automobile parts. Two approaches are suggested in this paper for solving the supplier selection problem. The first approach is that of a multiple attribute decision-making problem, and GTMA and/or other MADM methods are applied. The second approach is that of a multiple objective decision-making problem. A model using AHP and GA methods together is proposed in this paper for solving the supplier selection problem in a supply chain environment (treating the problem as a multiple objective decision-making problem). Integration of the proposed approach with the supply chain lead to reduced costs, improved product quality, improved flexibility to meet the needs of customers, and reduced lead time at different stages of the supply chain. Using the proposed methodology, the number of suppliers to be employed can also be decided.

Genetic Algorithms, AHP, Strategic Supplier Selection