A Fuzzy AHP Approach for Supplier Selection Problem: A Case Study in a Gear Motor Company

Supplier selection is one of the most important functions of a purchasing department. Since by deciding the best supplier, companies can save material costs and increase competitive advantage. However this decision becomes complicated in case of multiple suppliers, multiple conflicting criteria, and imprecise parameters. In addition the uncertainty and vagueness of the experts’ opinion is the prominent characteristic of the problem. Therefore an extensively used multi criteria decision making tool Fuzzy AHP can be utilized as an approach for supplier selection problem. This paper reveals the application of Fuzzy AHP in a gear motor company determining the best supplier with respect to selected criteria. The contribution of this study is not only the application of the Fuzzy AHP methodology for supplier selection problem, but also releasing a comprehensive literature review of multi criteria decision making problems. In addition by stating the steps of Fuzzy AHP clearly and numerically, this study can be a guide of the methodology to be implemented to other multiple criteria decision making problems.