An application of fuzzy Topsis method for supplier selection

Supplier selection is vital to the success of a manufacturing firm. Supplier selection is a multi criteria decision making (MCDM) problem and has a strategic importance for most companies. As the conventional methods for supplier selection are inadequate for dealing with the imprecise or vague nature of linguistic assessment, a new method called fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is proposed. The aim of this study is to compare and contrast crisp and fuzzy TOPSIS methods for the supplier selection. The proposed methods are applied to a manufacturing company in Turkey. After determining the criteria that affect the supplier selection decisions, the results for both crisp and fuzzy TOPSIS methods are presented.