An integrated strategic DEA-based structure for supplier selection in supply chain management

The quarrelsome and competitive circumstances of modern industry obligate the enterprises to develop the core and non-core competencies across the functional areas of their business. Thus, it is necessary to adopt a unified strategic behavior in supply chain management to handle the competition with concentrating on the competencies. This research attempts to develop a unified and integrated structure for evaluating a number of suppliers competing closely in a supply chain, on the basis of the strategic state plan. The evaluation is conducted within DEA-MADM (data envelopment analysis-multiple attribute decision making) framework. Due to the lack of discriminatory power of the DEA models in evaluating the efficient suppliers, gray relational analysis (GRA) and principal component analysis (PCA) technique are developed to strengthen the discrimination power of the analysis. We applied a real-world application to demonstrate the advantages and applicability of the proposed structure.