An Adapted Multi-Criteria Approach to Suppliers and Products Selection –An Application Oriented to Lead-Time Reduction

In this paper, a structured approach to select the most suitable dyad supplier/purchased items with the purpose to streamline the procurement process is proposed. Due to its characteristics, the approach is particularly suitable to be adopted when a wide number of vendors and purchased items have to be pondered. To progressively reduce the amount of alternatives to be assessed, the approach integrates cluster analysis (CA) and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques. Fuzzy logic is also brought in to deal with the ill-defined nature of the selection process. An extensive case study is presented to show the practical application of the methodology. The application proposed approaches supplier selection with the aim to assess the fallouts of integration over the procurement lead time.