Title: An efficient supplier selection model for hospital pharmacy through fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS

Authors: P. Manivel; Rajesh Ranganathan

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, 641-014, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, 641-014, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: This article investigates the significance of supplier selection process in hospital pharmacy. Normally, high quality services, inventory and customer satisfaction is influenced mostly by the supplier selection criteria such as cost, delivery of the product, service, flexibility with the consumer, etc. The uncertainty during supplier selection could be handled by MCDM techniques. A methodology is developed to analyze the qualitative and quantitative variables involved in the supplier selection process and it is illustrated with the case study of a hospital pharmacy. This paper analyze the alternatives, criteria and sub criteria of the supplier selection process by multi criteria decision making approach of fuzzy analytic heuristic process (FAHP) and fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (FTOPSIS) methods. Finally compare the results obtained by FAHP and FTOPSIS methods and select the appropriate supplier which helps to improve the efficiency of the pharmacy.

Keywords: supplier selection; fuzzy AHP; MCDM techniques; hospital pharmacy; inventory; services; operations management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2019.101588

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2019 Vol.33 No.4, pp.468 - 493

Received: 11 Mar 2017
Accepted: 04 Dec 2017
Published online: 13 Aug 2019 *

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