An effective AHP-based metaheuristic approach to solve supplier selection problem

摘要

The supplier selection problem is based on electing the best supplier from agroup of pre-specified candidates, is identified as a Multi Criteria DecisionMaking (MCDM), is proportionately significant in terms of qualitative andquantitative attributes. It is a fundamental issue to achieve a trade-offbetween such quantifiable and unquantifiable attributes with an aim toaccomplish the best solution to the abovementioned problem. This articleportrays a metaheuristic based optimization model to solve this NP-Completeproblem. Initially the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is implemented togenerate an initial feasible solution of the problem. Thereafter a SimulatedAnnealing (SA) algorithm is exploited to improve the quality of the obtainedsolution. The Taguchi robust design method is exploited to solve the criticalissues on the subject of the parameter selection of the SA technique. In orderto verify the proposed methodology the numerical results are demonstrated basedon tangible industry data.