Customer order dependent supplier selection

This paper develops a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model for a manufacturing company to select suppliers based on customer orders. A customer order dependent weighting method is developed to determine the weights of the supplier selection criteria. This is achieved by modeling the relationship between the customer order factors and supplier selection criteria, using a knowledge base with if-then rules. With the elicited selection criteria weights, an MCDM model is used to select among suitable suppliers for a given customer order. An empirical study on an auto parts manufacturing company is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model. The customer order dependent weighting method provides significant insights in addressing the supplier selection problem of a supply chain.