The Fuzzy ART algorithm: A categorization method for supplier evaluation and selection

For most of managers purchasing is a strategic issue. Thus, to select the suitable suppliers has strategic importance for every company. The objective of supplier selection is to reduce purchasing risk, maximize overall value to the purchaser and build a long term, reliable relationship between buyers and suppliers. Many methods have been proposed and used for supplier evaluation and selection; most of them try to rank the suppliers from the best to the worst and to choose the appropriate supplier(s). Supplier evaluation and selection is a complex and typical multi criteria decision-making problem. Because of human judgment needs in many area of supplier selection such as preferences on alternatives or on the attributes of suppliers or the class number and borders supplier selection becomes more difficult and risky. In this study, a new tool for supplier selection is proposed. In this paper, we applied Fuzzy Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART)’s classification ability to the supplier evaluation and selection area. The proposed selection method, using Fuzzy ART not only selects the most appropriate supplier(s) and also clusters all of the vendors according to chosen criteria. To explain the Fuzzy ART method a real-life supplier selection problem is solved and suppliers are categorized according to their similarities. The obtained results show that the proposed method is well suited as a decision-making tool for supplier evaluation and selection problem. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.