66 Int. J. Applied Decision Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2014
Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Multi-objective supplier selection and order allocation
under quantity discounts with fuzzy goals and fuzzy
constraints
Nima Kazemi*
Young Researchers and Elite Club, Karaj Branch,
Islamic Azad University,
Karaj, Iran
E-mail: nimakzm@gmail.com
*Corresponding author
Ehsan Ehsani
Young Researchers and Elite Club, Sari Branch,
Islamic Azad University,
Sari, Iran
E-mail: ehsani.ie2010@gmail.com
Christoph H. Glock
Carlo and Karin Giersch Endowed Chair
‘Business Management: Industrial Management’,
Department of Law and Economics,
Technische Universität Darmstadt,
Hochschulstr. 1, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany
E-mail: glock@bwl.tu-darmstadt.de
Abstract: This paper investigates a multi-objective supplier selection and order
allocation problem under quantity discounts in a fuzzy environment. Prior
research on supplier selection and order allocation with quantity discounts
mainly considered partial fuzziness of the decision problem; a situation where
both the objectives of the decision maker and the constraints are fuzzy has not
been studied up to now. This paper closes this gap by integrating both aspects
into a single model. First, a combination of fuzzy preference programming and
interval-based TOPSIS is proposed for evaluating suppliers. Secondly, based
on the scores obtained in the first step, a fuzzy multi-objective linear
programming model is developed. Subsequently, a new solution procedure for
solving the fuzzy multi-objective linear programming model is presented. The
procedure first transforms fuzzy constraints and coefficients into deterministic
coefficients, and then three different fuzzy programming approaches, namely
interactive fuzzy multi-objective linear programming, and the weighted
additive as well as the weighted max-min method are implemented. Finally, the
performance of each method is evaluated by computing the distance between
each solution and the preferred solution.
Keywords: supplier selection; order allocation; quantity discount; fuzzy
preference programming; FPP; interval-based TOPSIS; α-cut approach;
interactive fuzzy linear programming; i-FMOLP; weighted additive method;
weighted max-min method.