Title: Supply chain sustainability strategy selection using integrated multi-criteria decision-making method

Authors: V. Sreekumar; M. Rajmohan

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, India ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, India

Abstract: In recent years, industries have begun taking up proactive leadership and working together with their supply chain partners to implement initiatives for improving the sustainability of the supply chain. Sustainability performance improvements in industries are essential for survival rather than meeting the regulatory and reporting requirements. This paper aims at determining the major sustainability criteria and prioritising the given sustainability strategy sets to achieve the highest sustainability performance. This multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem is solved by the application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and preference ranking organisation method for the enrichment of evaluations (PROMETHEE) techniques in an integrated way. In this study, criteria for comparing the alternatives are identified from literature. The criteria weights are obtained using AHP methodology and are used in the PROMETHEE (I and II) for ranking the strategy sets. The proposed methodology is applied to solve a real-time supply chain decision-making issue of an Indian manufacturing industry. The most sustainable strategy proposal is identified. Sensitivity analysis is carried out on the variations in ranks with respect to the deviation in criteria weights. The minimum deviations in criteria weights that cause rank reversal are also identified from this. It facilitates getting insights into the stability of the ranks to the decision maker.

Keywords: supply chain; sustainability; strategies; ranking; multi-criteria decision making; MCDM; analytic hierarchy process; AHP; PROMETHEE; integrated approach; sensitivity analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2018.096085

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2018 Vol.31 No.4, pp.483 - 505

Received: 24 Oct 2016
Accepted: 29 May 2017
Published online: 12 Nov 2018 *

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