A sorting-based management model to support early supplier involvement in new product development

It has been found that significant benefits can be achieved if suppliers are involved in the early phase of new product development process. However, in practice, this approach do not always bright in the desired benefits, if does not have a negative influence on the buyer firm´s performance. Trying to solve this problem, this paper describes a new management model based on a multicriteria sorting method. First, the index system for the evaluation of suppliers is constructed from the perspectives of quality, cost, delivery, development potentiality, technical capabilities, and cooperation capability. Second, by introducing the preferences of the decision maker, the suppliers are assigned to predefined ordered categories according to a new multicriteria sorting method based on PROMETHEE. At last, the suppliers are compared by means of the single criterion net flows, so as to identify potential reasons for differences in performance in order to improve suppliers. The usability and validity of the model are demonstrated by an empirical analysis.