Going Green Supply Chain Management During COVID-19, Assessing the Best Supplier Selection Criteria: A Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Approach

In the past ten years, sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) attach great importance due to consumers, for-profit and profitless organizations, laws and regulations to the social and corporate responsibilities of consumers, so it has been recognized by practitioners and scholars. Supplier selection, environmental effect like a lockdown, and social cooperation and other SSCM programs can play an important part in realizing the triple bottom line (TBL) of economic, environmental, social assistances. In supply chain management (SCM), the sustainable supplier selection (SSS) and firm performance plays an important role. Traditionally, when evaluating SSS performance, organizations will consider a new framework to obtain the overall criteria/sub-criteria of the sustainability index by encapsulating sustainability. In this paper 12 sub-criteria for 3 pillars of sustainability as economic, environment and social performance is collected. Although there are many articles on SSS and evaluation, so far, research on sustainability issues is very limited. This study endeavours to propose a fuzzy multi-criteria approach to discuss SSCM planning, and studies the issue of determining a current model for SSS in the supply chain during COVID-19 based on the TBL method. For express the linguistic value of the subjective preference of experts we use triangular fuzzy numbers. By using fuzzy numbers to find standard weights for qualitative performance evaluation, then fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) is proposed to find the ranking of SSS. However, COVID-19 has a negative role in SSS and in firm performance. The situation of lockdown due to COVID-19 has a negative effect on the performance of the organizations. An example is given of the proposed method.

Pythagorean Fuzzy Soft Einstein Ordered Weighted Average Operator in Sustainable Supplier Selection Problem

Pythagorean fuzzy soft set (PFSS) is the most influential and operative extension of the Pythagorean fuzzy set (PFS), which contracts with the parametrized standards of the substitutes. It is also a generalized form of the intuitionistic fuzzy soft set (IFSS) and delivers a well and accurate estimation in the decision-making (DM) procedure. The primary purpose is to prolong and propose ideas related to Einstein’s ordered weighted aggregation operator from fuzzy to PFSS, comforting the condition that the sum of the degrees of membership function and nonmembership function is less than one and the sum of the squares of the degree of membership function and nonmembership function is less than one. We present a novel Pythagorean fuzzy soft Einstein ordered weighted averaging (PFSEOWA) operator based on operational laws for Pythagorean fuzzy soft numbers. Furthermore, some essential properties such as idempotency, boundedness, and homogeneity for the proposed operator have been presented in detail. The choice of a sustainable supplier is also examined as an essential part of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and is considered a crucial multiattribute group decision-making (MAGDM) issue. In some MAGDM problems, the relationship between alternatives and uncertain environments will be the main reason for deficient consequences. We have presented a novel aggregation operator for PFSS information to choose sustainable suppliers to cope with those complex issues. The Pythagorean fuzzy soft number (PFSN) helps to represent the obscure information in such real-world perspectives. The priority relationship of PFSS details is beneficial in coping with SSCM. The proposed method’s effectiveness is proved by comparing advantages, effectiveness, and flexibility among the existing studies.

A Decision Framework for Solar PV Panels Supply Chain in Context of Sustainable Supplier Selection and Order Allocation

Sustainable supplier selection and order allocation (SSSOA) is paramount to sustainable supply chain management. It is a complex multi-dimensional decision-making process augmented with the triple bottom line of sustainability. This research presents a multi-phase decision framework to address a SSSOA problem for the multi-echelon renewable energy equipment (Solar PV Panels) supply chain. The framework comprises of fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making techniques augmented with fuzzy multi-objective mixed-integer non-linear programming mathematical model. The various economic, environmental, and social objectives were optimized for a multi-period, multi-modal transportation network of the supply chain. The results show that among the various sustainable criteria selected in this study, product cost, environmental management system, and health and safety rights of employees are the most important for decision-makers. The results of the mathematical model highlighted the impact of multimodal transportation on overall cost, time, and environmental impact for all periods. An analysis of results revealed that transfer cost and customer clearance cost contribute significantly towards overall cost. Furthermore, defect rate was also observed to play a critical role in supplier selection and order allocation.

The vital-immaterial-mediocre multi-criteria decision-making method

PurposeThis paper proposes a new multi-criteria decision-making method, called the vital-immaterial-mediocre method (VIMM), to determine the weight of multiple conflicting and subjective criteria in a decision-making problem.Design/methodology/approachThe novel method utilizes pairwise comparisons, vector-based procedures and a scoring approach to determine weights of criteria. The VIMM compares alternatives by the three crucial components, namely the vital, immaterial and mediocre criteria. The vital criterion has the largest effect on the final results, followed by the mediocre criterion and then the immaterial criterion, which is the least impactful on the prioritization of alternatives. VIMM is developed in two forms where the first scenario is designed to solve one-goal decision-making problems, while the second scenario embraces multiple goals.FindingsTo validate the method’s performance and applicability, VIMM is applied to a problem of sustainable supplier selection. Comparisons between VIMM, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and best-worst method (BWM) reveal that VIMM significantly requires fewer comparisons. Moreover, VIMM works well with both fractional and integer numbers in its comparison procedures.Research limitations/implicationsAs an implication for research, we have added the development of the VIMM under fuzzy and grey environments as the direction for optimization of the method.Practical implicationsAs managerial implications, VIMM not only provides less complex process for the evaluation of the criteria in the managerial decision-making process, but it also generates consistent results, which make VIMM a reliable tool to apply to a large number of potential decision-making problems.Originality/valueAs a novel subjective weighting method, there exist five major values that VIMM brings over AHP and BWM methods: VIMM requires fewer comparisons compared with AHP and BWM; it is not sensitive to the number of criteria; as a goal-oriented method, it exclusively takes the decision-making goals into account; it keeps the validity and reliability of the Decision-Makers’ (DMs’) opinions and works well with integer and fractional numbers.

An integrated approach based on the decision-theoretic rough set for resilient-sustainable supplier selection and order allocation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose an innovative integration method based on decision-theoretic rough set and the extended VlseKriterijuska Optimizacija I Komoromisno Resenje (VIKOR) methods to address the resilient-sustainable supplier selection and order allocation (SS/OA) problem.Design/methodology/approachSpecifically, a two-stage approach is designed in this paper. First, the decision-theoretic rough set is employed to calculate the rough number for coping with the subjective uncertainty of data and assigning the weights for a resilient-sustainable evaluation criterion. On this basis, the supplier resilient-sustainable performance is ranked in combination with the extended VIKOR method. Second, a novel multi-objective optimization model is proposed that applies an improved genetic algorithm to select the resilient-sustainable supplier and allocate the corresponding order quantity under a multi-tier supplier network.FindingsThe results reveal that joint consideration of resilience and sustainability is essential in the SS/OA process. The method proposed in this study based on decision-theoretic rough sets and the extended VIKOR method can handle imprecise information flexibly, reduce information loss and obtain acceptable solutions for decision-makers. Numerical cases validate that this integrated approach can combine resilience and sustainability for effective and efficient SS/OA.Practical implicationsThis paper provides industry managers with a new perspective on SS/OA from a resilience and sustainability perspective as a basis for best practices for industry resilience and sustainability. The proposed method helps to evaluate the resilient-sustainable performance of potential suppliers, which is applicable to solving real-world SS/OA problems and has important practical implications for the resilient-sustainable development of supply chains.Originality/valueThe two interrelated priorities of resilience and sustainability have emerged as key strategic challenges in SS/OA issues. This paper is the first study of this issue that uses the proposed integrated approach.