Incorporating management opinion in green supplier selection model using quality function deployment and interactive fuzzy programming

Abstract

The need for environmental protection and involvement of ecological aspects in the business operations is forcing the organizations to re-examine their action plans and rebuild their supply chain activities. Many organizations are incorporating environmental rules and regulations in their everyday matters by focusing on green supplier selection. The proposed research paper develops a multi-objective interactive fuzzy programming model for the selection of suppliers. This model works on a business quartet of green appraisal score, cost, quality, and time. The model uses an environmental scale for different green parameters and all the suppliers are scored based on this scale. In this research model, Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology is integrated with the multi-objective interactive fuzzy programming. QFD technique is utilized to compute the weights of several green factors used for the selection of suppliers. The model uses a Fuzzy linguistic scale and a triangular membership function to link expert opinions along with their experience to solve the problem. Finally, the model is validated on a numerical case study of the textile industry for green supplier selection which achieves a 100% satisfaction for cost and time, 75% satisfaction for green appraisal score, and 93.95% for the quality. The proposed model assists the decision-makers in selecting green suppliers to improve the overall sustainability of their organizations.