Supplier selection with integrated ANP, TOPSIS and VIKOR methods: An application in furniture industry

The decisions of business managers are very important in order to increase sectoral performance and provide competitive advantage in international markets. One of the most important decisions is to select the best suppliers based on all combinations of sorting criteria. Such decisions requiring to be evaluated both multiple qualitative and quantitative criteria are accepted as multi-criteria decision making problems. Some methods have been developed to solve these problems. In this study, the supplier selection problem of a company operating in the furniture sector was considered. Supplier selection criteria obtained from literature were evaluated by the expert team in the company to determine the final evaluation criteria. The proposed model, Analytical Network Process (ANP) was integrated with Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (in Serbian) (VIKOR) to evaluate the best supplier for particleboard and fasteners which are important cost elements in furniture production. Supplier ranking results were evaluated and a single ranking was created by combining these results with the Borda count method. The results of this study indicated that important criteria in selection of the particle board and fasteners suppliers was main and sub criteria related with quality and cost. Y1 and M2 suppliers was determined as the best suppliers.