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An Efficient supplier selection Model for Hospital Pharmacy through Fuzzy AHP
and Fuzzy TOPSIS

Article  in  International Journal of Services and Operations Management · December 2017

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2019.10011263

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 An Efficient supplier selection Model for Hospital Pharmacy through Fuzzy
AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS

P. MANIVEL* AND RAJESH RANGANATHAN

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology,

Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, INDIA -641 014.

*
Address for Correspondence
E-Mail: manispn@gmail.com
drrajeshranganathan@gmail.com
Mob: +91 9994068867

1
 An Efficient supplier selection Model for Hospital Pharmacy through Fuzzy AHP and
Fuzzy TOPSIS
Manivel P 1, Dr. Rajesh Ranganathan 2
1
Assistant Professor, 2Professor
1&2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore,
India -641 014.
E-mail: 1manispn@gmail.com, 2 drrajeshranganathan@gmail.com
Abstract
This article investigates the significance of supplier selection in hospital pharmacy. In
recent global scenario, the selection of supplier for the pharmacy is a crucial role to prompt
service level as well as total value cost. Normally, high quality services, inventory and customer
satisfaction is influenced mostly by the supplier selection process variable. The supplier selection
normally depends on many criteria such as cost, delivery of the product, service, flexibility with
the consumer, etc. The uncertainty during supplier selection could be handled by Multi-Criteria
Decision Making (MCDM) techniques. A methodology is developed to analyze the qualitative
and quantitative variables involved in the supplier selection process and it is illustrated with the
case study of a hospital pharmacy. This paper analyze the alternatives, criteria and sub criteria of
the supplier selection process by multi criteria decision making approach of Fuzzy Analytic
Heuristic Process (FAHP) and Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal
Solution (FTOPSIS) methods. Based on discussion with the pharmacy manager, five criteria
were chosen and analyzed. The decision makers determined the weights of the criteria and sub-
criteria and evaluate the alternatives and ranks them by FAHP and FTOPSIS method. Finally
compare the results obtained by FAHP and FTOPSIS methods and select the appropriate supplier
which helps to improve the overall efficiency of the pharmacy.

Keywords: Supplier selection, Fuzzy AHP, MCDM techniques, Hospital pharmacy, Inventory.

Introduction:
In today’s competitive world, the firms experience complexities frequently in
constituting and continuing the supply chain [1]. The manufacturers spend on purchased items
and holds more than 60% of its total sales. Most of the hospital pharmacy follows their own
method of inventory levels, supplier selection methods, etc. The efficiency of the hospital
pharmacy supply chain is mostly influenced by the level of inventory maintained by the
pharmacy and the cost accumulated due to inventory [2]. The term inventory not only influenced
the pharmacy supply chain, it exists in all the fields such as production, automotive,
pharmaceutical industry, electrical, electronics, transportation, agriculture, textile etc. Suppliers
play the key role in inventory [3]. The decision about the selection of reliable suppliers is one
among the crucial thing faced by many hospital pharmacies.
The pharmacies are ready to utilize a tremendous amount of pharmacy’s financial
resources in supplier selection process. In return, the pharmacy managers expects the reliable
supplier in all the way to fulfill the service, on-time delivery at low cost compared to other
suppliers [4]. With qualitative and quantitative data involved, more than one criteria is
considered during supplier selection process, one of the approaches required is to undergo the
Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) analysis [5]. There are various mathematical
techniques for MCDM problem such as analytic hierarchy process (AHP), data envelopment
analysis (DEA), analytic network process (ANP), FAHP, ANP, Goal programming, Genetic

2
algorithm (GA), etc. [5], [6]. In current situation, the hospital as well as private pharmacies are
facing lot of issues due to lack of inventory knowledge leading to stock-outs, storage of expired
drugs for sale, inefficient supplier and strive hard to fulfill the customer needs in an efficient
way.
The supplier selection process acts as a primary reason for all the major issues faced by
the pharmacies. Further, the supplier selection is the main criteria for improving the efficiency of
the pharmacy inventory management. Even though many researchers have worked on the
inventory management in various engineering applications, very few researchers reported about
the inventory management in the health care sector. The main objective of this paper is to
improve the efficiency of the pharmacy by selecting an appropriate supplier from the pool of
suppliers through multi criteria decision making techniques such as fuzzy AHP and fuzzy
TOPSIS.
The pharmacy manager’s acts as a decision makers in supplier selection and consider the
criteria and sub-criteria of the suppliers. In, the traditional approach, price was the only major
parameter in supplier selection process and it’s not enough to attain the realistic solution in
selection process [7]. Here in this work, about five criteria and the alternatives which are
preferred by the pharmacy manager are taken into consideration for supplier selection process.
Many researchers used MCDM techniques in various applications. Though, there are similar
researches, but in this work, MCDM is implemented in the health care sector of pharmacy
inventory management and their performance is studied. The conclusion of this study stated that
the supplier selection process plays major role in improving the overall efficiency of the
pharmacy.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a detailed literature review about
the supplier selection problem, MCDM Methods, fundamental definitions of fuzzy set theory,
concepts of FAHP and Fuzzy Technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution
(FTOPSIS) are discussed. This is followed by section 3, the applications of FAHP and FTOPSIS
in hospital pharmacy and the results are presented. The conclusion about this research work and
future work discussion are made in section 4.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Supply chain in Pharmacy
The pharmacy plays a vital role in hospital supply chain. The supply chain in hospital
pharmacy is not efficient to meet the demand and provide uninterrupted service to the people in
all means [8]. By comparing with other fields, the costs spent for health care technology and on
drugs holds the major expenditure, furthermore the price paid for compromising is very costly. In
hospital, the pharmacy uses large amount of money buying items and it’s the widely used
therapeutic facility at the hospital[9]. When it comes to buying and holding inventory of items,
the overall performance of industries and commercial enterprises is greatly influenced by the
inventory management. The overall performance, growth and profitability have been ensured
only through practice of good inventory management [10].
But, the inventory management coordinates all the activities such as supplier selection,
purchasing, manufacturing, distribution functions and puts in place to ensure the marketing and
organizational needs by availing the product to the customers. Inventory management is required
within or outside the location of the firm to prevent the unavailability and excess storage of the
products[8]. The serviceability and efficiencies of the hospital pharmacy are affected in many
ways due to improper inventory management, unskilled labours, unaware of inventory
techniques by the pharmacists, etc. The pharmacies faces multiple issues related to inventory
management such as unavailability of drugs, expiry drugs, inefficient supplier etc [11]The

3
pharamacist also unaware about the inventory control method results in providing poor and
inefficient service to the patients[12]. The main task of the pharmacy department is to maintain
effective stock management in hospital. The fluctuating drug demand and variety are constraints
which prevents from meeting the demand [13].
Initially, inventory control problems were handled by using simple methods of (𝑠, 𝑆) re-order
policy . Whenever the stock level goes below reorder point s, the order is initiated for a lot size S.
Later they introduced Q, the order size to be fixed at the time of order initiation. The inability of
considering all the parameters at the time of decision making is the the major drawback of this
technique [14]. As the inventory management is dependent on the supplier supplying the
product, supplier selection becomes crucial. Dahel (2003) and Millington (2006) stated that the
crucial decision in supply chain management is recognised as the supplier selection [15], [16].
Therefore, the success of supply chain mainly depends on supplier selection and evaluation of it
[17].
Through many supply chain literature, it was found that most researchers agreed that the
consideration of many criteria makes the supplier selection process and evaluation steps more
complicated [18]–[21]. Eventhough many researchers from various streams applied the supplier
selection techniques to select appropriate suppliers based on their requirements, still the
pharmacy inventory management lacks in adopting the MCDM techniques for their supplier
selection process. Yayla et al. reviewed many literature and presented the role of MCDM
techniques in various discipline and it clearly stated that the health care industry adopted multi
criteria decision making methods in very few studies when compared to other sectors [22]. The
following section, discuss in detail about the needs, criteria selection and application of supplier
selection process in various fields.

2.2 Supplier selection Process

Supplier selection process involves at the stage of launching new product or at the replacement
of existing supplier. For new product, the suppliers maybe selecting from existing pool of
suppliers or new from the market [23]. In this competitive environment, one of the critical issues
faced by an organization is identification of right supplier through supplier selection. In past
days, many researchers treated the issues of supplier selection and inventory planning separately.
Later, they realized the influence of supplier selection in inventory management, and many
research has been carried out in the supplier selection process. [24]–[26]. The process involved
in supplier selection is also tedious due to various factors influencing the decision-making
process [27], the data related to the criteria are in the mix of qualitative and quantitative form,
sometimes not clearly defined [28], [29].
Efficient suppliers are selected based on many factors like; cheaper price, quality, cost, discount,
return policies, etc. Buyer’s requirement cannot be satisfied by a single supplier because each
supplier have their own constraints in terms of delivery, lead time, etc. Therefore buyer
requirement would be fulfilled only when they go for different suppliers to compensate their
requirements [30]. Table 1, provides a list of important criteria that are involved for selection
process. From the literature it could be found that cost and quality were the primary criterion
while, location of the supplier found its least importance amongst the selected criteria.
Furthermore, these criterion differ from supplier to supplier, product type, company profile,
purchasing system and data availability [31].
This reveals that many criteria and sub-criteria are to be considered to find the reliable suppliers
during the selection process. Hence, the selection of suppliers is a typical multi criteria decision

4
making problem and decision makers are in a position to consider both qualitative and
quantitative criteria. In the supplier selection process, Verma et al. adopted price, quality, cost
and service as main criteria in the decision-making process [32]. Likewise, Krishan et al. and Wu
et al. mentioned three criteria namely price, quality and delivery as important and most
influenced in the decision-making process [33], [34]. Tuna et al. reviewed many literature and
stated the supplier selection process are mostly influenced by nearly 44 criteria, in which the
quality holds the highest priority than delivery and cost [35]. Wu et al. suggested price, quality
and delivery as the supplier selection criteria. [36].
Recent days, the researchers adopted the concept of placing sub criteria under the main criteria.
Torlak et al. considered business, technology, manufacturing, performance, quality system
assessment and human resources as main criteria and suggested 25 sub-criteria under the main
criteria [37]. Bruno et.al used quality of the product and process, service, organization
involvement in innovation and economic status as criteria for supplier selection process [38].
Following the above literature study, it could be understood that many criteria are used and each
of it depended on their area to be studied or based on the product. Understanding that various
criteria are involved in supplier selection process, and not the same selected criteria is used for
all the product types from the criteria list, the pharmacy managers are requested to suggest the
criteria which influenced mostly in pharmacy supplier selection.
The pharmacy managers are the key players in the hospital pharmacy in terms of resource
utilization, checking inventory and management, rising purchase orders, selection and allocation
of orders to the suppliers, etc. They deal with about 390 drugs and with a turnover of 3200000
rupees per month. Based on their suggestions, the criteria which are considered for this study are
cost (𝐶1 ), delivery (𝐶2 ), service (𝐶3 ), flexibility (𝐶4 ), and relationship(𝐶5 ). The pharmacy
managers revealed that the efficiency of the pharmacy inventory management improved by
selecting the appropriate supplier with the help of suggested criteria. Following the criterion
selection, the further progress was in MCDM.
Table 2 details the most commonly used supplier selection methods discussed by researchers [7]
and it’s clear that the MCDM techniques is one of the widely used technique by many
researchers, with the objective of selecting a suitable supplier in various fields.[23], [39], [40].
Ayhan et al. reviewed, annotated and classified nearly 91 related articles from 2011 – 2014 and
clearly categorized the sectors based distribution of MCDM techniques and in depth shows the
distribution of MCDM methods used in supplier selection process. Rezaei proposed Best Worst
Method (BWM) for multi criteria decision making problems, which provides single solution and
comparison system with any number of criteria [41]. But in recent decades, FAHP and FTOPSIS
are widely used due to the constraints of considering the linguistic judgments of decision makers
in AHP and TOPSIS. In health care the influence of MCDM techniques are least in count
compared to other sectors like automotive, manufacturing, etc.

2.3 Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques

Fuzzy sets
Every business in this uncertain world is facing a highly competitive environment [42]. The
decision makers strive hard to take feasible decision due to the existence of imprecise data and
vague terms. In past decades, only the criteria in quantitative forms were considered for decision
making process but, several factors that influenced the decision in the form of qualitative aspects
such as incomplete information and imprecision preferences[43] are not taken in account during
evaluation of the decision model. To overcome this, the decision makers used fuzzy set theory to

5
consider both qualitative and quantitative criteria to get the feasible decision. Fuzzy set theory
was first introduced by Zadeh to deal with imprecision of the human judgments. A Fuzzy set is a
class of objects with various grades of membership ranging between 0 and 1 and it was assigned
to each object in a membership function [44]. Fuzzy set modelling have proven to be an effective
tool for decision makers to handle decision maker’s idea which is in linguistic variables,
complex and vague.

Linguistic Variables
The Linguistic variables are the variables that are represented with their values in the form of
words or sentences in a natural or artificial languages [45]. As an illustration, service is a
linguistic variable and the values are represented as fuzzy variables labeled very fair, fair,
average, worse, etc. rather than numerical values [46]. This means that the approximate
characterization of uncertain and complex phenomena that to be analyzed and later presented in
quantitative terms are obtained from linguistic variables. This approach is widely used in the
discipline of artificial intelligence, human decision process, pattern recognition, law, information
retrieval, economics, etc [45].

Fuzzy Numbers
A fuzzy number 𝑀 ̃ is a convex normalized fuzzy set of the real line X, it exists such that 𝑥𝑜 ∈ 𝑋
with 𝜇𝑚 ̃ (𝑥0 ) = 1 (𝑥0 is called mean value of 𝑀̃ ) and 𝜇𝑎̃(𝑥) is piecewise continuous. The
different fuzzy numbers are used based upon the situation where it applies. The computational
simplicity, way of promoting representation and processing the information in fuzzy
environment makes the triangular fuzzy numbers to work easy in application rather the
trapezoidal fuzzy numbers [47]. In this study, FAHP and FTOPSIS methods adopted the
triangular fuzzy numbers for formulating the information in the form of subjective and imprecise
manner.
The triangular fuzzy numbers are defined in triplet form (l, m, u). The least possible value, most
promising value and highest possible value of a fuzzy event are represented by the parameters of
̃ [48]–[50] shown in Fig.1
l, m, u respectively and triangular fuzzy number 𝑀

Various operations to be performed on triangular fuzzy numbers. If we consider two positive

triangular fuzzy numbers (l1, m1, u1) and (l2, m2, u2) then the algebraic operations are:

(l1, m1, u1) + (l2, m2, u2) = (l1 +l2 + m1+ m2+ u1+ u2) - Addition (1)

(l1, m1, u1)* (l2, m2, u2) = (l1 * l2, m1* m2, u1* u2) – Multiplication (2)

(l1, m1, u1)-1 ≈ (1/u1, 1/ m1, 1/u1) - Inverse (3)

(l1, m1, u1) * c = (l1c, m1c, u1c) - with Constant c (4)

*
c is a positive real number

Using vertex method to calculate the distance between two triangular fuzzy numbers [51].

6
 1
̃ , 𝑛̃) = √3 [(𝑙1 − 𝑙2 )2 + (𝑚1 − 𝑚2 )2 + (𝑢1 − 𝑢2 )2 ]
dv (𝑚 (5)

2.4 FAHP
Analytic Hierarchy Process was proposed by Saaty, it is a methodology for decision makers to
deal with decision making by considering a set of evaluation criteria, set priorities for the
criteria, and select the best from the alternatives [52]. The Initial step of AHP are the structured
decision problems in hierarchy form. In hierarchy, the overall objective is placed at the top,
followed by criteria and sub-criteria which influenced the decision towards objective in the
middle and in the bottom level of the hierarchy, and the alternatives are placed
The conventional AHP is inadequate for the decision makers at the time of considering uncertain
imprecise nature of data that influenced the decision [45], [46]. To overcome these situation,
FAHP to be introduced to represent the uncertainty, vagueness and linguistic form of data in
triangular fuzzy number for pairwise comparison [51]. In real life, the decision makers expect
effective decision making models that consider the vagueness or ambiguity in the decision
making problems [53]. Integration of fuzzy domain into conventional AHP method by using
fuzzy numbers triangular numbers for calculating the imprecise and vague opinion and
evaluation score of decision makers is found to be an option [54], [55].
Yildiz et al. reviewed many papers and categorized the MCDM techniques on the basis of
decision making methods, sector based application and criteria to be used for supplier selection
[22]. Fig. 4 shows the sector based distribution of MCDM techniques. Through that,
implementation of FAHP in supplier selection process for health sector are limited up to
pharmaceutical company [56]. The purchase managers in hospital pharmacy are not aware about
the influence of FAHP and other MCDM techniques in supplier selection process.
Chang’s extent analysis of FAHP is utilized for supplier selection process in hospital pharmacy
[48]. In this method, the comparative judgments of decision makers are expressed in linguistic
variables. Let the goal set are be G={𝑔1 , 𝑔2 , 𝑔3 , … … 𝑔𝑛 } and the object set be
X={𝑥1 , 𝑥2 , 𝑥3 , … … 𝑥𝑛 }. Considering each object and performing extent analysis for each goal.
The values of m extent analysis for each object can be obtained, with the following signs:
1 𝑗 𝑚
𝑀𝑔𝑖 , 𝑀𝑔𝑖 , … … . 𝑀𝑔𝑖 , 𝑖 = 1,2, … . , 𝑛
𝑗
Where 𝑀𝑔𝑖 (j=1, 2, … m) are triangular fuzzy numbers.

The steps involved in Chang[48] extent analysis are;

Step 1: The fuzzy synthetic extent value w.r.to ith object to be computed is defined as
𝑗 𝑗 −1
𝑆𝑖 = ∑𝑚 𝑛 𝑚
𝑗=1 𝑀𝑔𝑖 ⦻ [∑𝑖=1 ∑𝑗=1 𝑀𝑔𝑖 ] (6)
𝑗
To obtain ∑𝑚
𝑗=1 𝑀𝑔𝑖 - fuzzy addition operation of m extent analysis

𝑗
∑𝑚 𝑚 𝑚 𝑚
𝑗=1 𝑀𝑔𝑖 = (∑𝑗=1 𝑙𝑗 , ∑𝑗=1 𝑚𝑗 , ∑𝑗=1 𝑢𝑗 ) (7)

𝑗 −1 𝑗
To obtain [∑𝑛𝑖=1 ∑𝑚
𝑗=1 𝑀𝑔𝑖 ] - fuzzy addition operation of 𝑀𝑔𝑖 (j = 1, 2, … … , m) values

𝑗
[∑𝑛𝑖=1 ∑𝑚 𝑛 𝑛 𝑛
𝑗=1 𝑀𝑔𝑖 ] = (∑𝑖=1 𝑙𝑖 , ∑𝑖=1 𝑚𝑖 , ∑𝑖=1 𝑢𝑖 ) (8)

7
and the inverse to be computed by
𝑗 −1 1 1 1
[∑𝑛𝑖=1 ∑𝑚
𝑗=1 𝑀𝑔𝑖 ] = (∑𝑛 , ∑𝑛 , ∑𝑛 ) (9)
𝑖=1 𝑢𝑖 𝑖=1 𝑚𝑖 𝑖=1 𝑙𝑖

Step 2: The two triangular fuzzy numbers are S1 = (𝑙1 , 𝑚1 , 𝑢1 ) and S2 = (𝑙2 , 𝑚2 , 𝑢2 ) and the
value of S2 and S1 are given by Eq. (6). The degree of possibility of S2 = (𝑙2 , 𝑚2 , 𝑢2 ) ≥ S1 =
(𝑙1 , 𝑚1 , 𝑢1 ) is defined as:

𝑉(𝑠2 ≥ 𝑠1 ) = 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑦≥𝑥 [min ( 𝜇𝑠2 (𝑦), 𝜇𝑠1 (𝑥)) ] (10)

Eq. (10) equivalently expressed as

𝑉(𝑠2 ≥ 𝑠1 ) = ℎ𝑔𝑡(𝑠2 ∩ 𝑠1 ) = 𝜇𝑠2 (𝑑) (11)

1, 𝑖𝑓 𝑚2 ≥ 𝑚1
𝜇𝑠2 (𝑑) = { 0, 𝑖𝑓 𝑙1 ≥ 𝑢2 } (12)
𝑙1 − 𝑢2
(𝑚2 −𝑢2 )−(𝑚1 −𝑙1 )
, 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒

In Eqs. (11) and (12), where the highest intersection point D between 𝜇𝑠1 and 𝜇𝑠2 is represented
by d. The values of 𝑉(𝑠2 ≥ 𝑠1 ) and V(𝑠1 ≥ 𝑠2 ) are required to compare M1 and M2
Step 3: Compute the degree of possibility for a convex fuzzy number to be greater than k convex
fuzzy Si (i=1, 2, 3, . . . ., k). It can be defined by
V(S ≥ S1, S2, S3, ….., Sk)
= V[(S ≥ S1) and (S ≥ S2) and …. and (S ≥ Sk)] (13)
= min V(S ≥ Si ), i = 1, 2, …., k
Step 4: compute the vector 𝑤 ′ ,
𝑤 ′ = (𝑑′ (𝐴1 ), 𝑑′ (𝐴2 ), … … . . , 𝑑′ (𝐴𝑘 ) )𝑇 (14)
Assume that 𝑑 ′ (𝐴𝑖 ) = min V(Si ≥ Sj ), for i= 1,2, …., k, k ≠j (15)
The normalized vector is indicated by
𝑤 = (𝑑(𝐴1 ), 𝑑(𝐴2 ), … … . . , 𝑑(𝐴𝑘 ) )𝑇 (16)
Where W is a non-fuzzy number calculated for each comparison matrix.
2.5 Fuzzy TOPSIS
The conventional TOPSIS method was first proposed by Hwang and Yoon [57]. In this method,
the alternatives used for decision making should have shortest and farthest distance from positive
ideal solution and negative ideal solution respectively. The benefits are maximized and cost are
minimized in positive ideal solution and vice versa for negative ideal solution[58]. TOPSIS are
adequate for the evaluation process. In real life decision problems, considering crisp values are
not enough to attain the feasible solution. Criteria holding non-crisp values are difficult to

8
consider during the evaluation process. Thus the conventional method of TOPSIS neglects the
uncertainty and imprecision values, which are difficult to measure in crisp values. To overcome
this situation, Chen[51] proposed the FTOPSIS method to solve MCDM problems under
uncertainty.
The integration of fuzzy set theory with TOPSIS are developed to solve real time problems
without any ambiguity in considering the imprecision and incomplete information [59]–[62]. The
triangular fuzzy numbers are used in FTOPSIS. The TFN makes the decision makers to
formulate the subjective and imprecise information effectively[49], [62]–[64]. Yayla et al.
reviewed many research papers and clearly stated that the FTOPSIS are widely used in various
application for decision making process [22]. The extension method of TOPSIS proposed by
Chen et.al is used for supplier selection process in hospital pharmacy [43].
The procedure of FTOPSIS are summarized as follows:
Step 1: There are k decision makers in the committee and their fuzzy rating are 𝐷𝑘 (𝑘 =
1, 2, . . . 𝐾) can be represented as TFN 𝑅̃𝑘 = (𝑘 = 1,2, … , 𝐾) with membership function 𝜇𝑅̃𝑘 (𝑥).

Step 2: Determine the criteria used for evaluation process.

Step 3: The criteria and alternatives to be evaluated. For this, appropriate linguistic variables are
chosen initially.
Step 4: Then aggregate the weights of criteria, alternatives and decision makers. The aggregated
fuzzy rating of all the decision makers are 𝑅̃ = (𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑐), 𝑘 = 1,2, … , 𝑘.
1
Here = 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑘 {𝑎𝑘 } , 𝑏 = 𝑘 ∑𝑘𝑘=1 𝑏𝑘 , 𝑐 = 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑘 {𝑐𝑘 } (16)

If the fuzzy rating and importance weight of the 𝑘 𝑡ℎ decision maker, about 𝑖 𝑡ℎ alterative on 𝑗 𝑡ℎ
𝑘 𝑘 𝑘 𝑘 𝑘 𝑘 𝑘 𝑘
criterion are 𝑥̃𝑖𝑗 = (𝑎𝑖𝑗 , 𝑏𝑖𝑗 , 𝑐𝑖𝑗 ) and 𝑤
̃𝑗1 = (𝑤𝑗1 , 𝑤𝑗2 , 𝑤𝑗3 ) respectively; where 𝑖 = 1,2, … . , 𝑚
𝑗 = 1,2, … . , 𝑛, then the aggregated fuzzy ratings 𝑥̃𝑖𝑗 of alternatives (i) w.r.to each criterion (j)
can be found as 𝑥̃𝑖𝑗 = (𝑎𝑖𝑗 , 𝑏𝑖𝑗 , 𝑐𝑖𝑗 )

Here;
1
𝑎𝑖𝑗 = 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑘 {𝑎𝑖𝑗𝑘 }, 𝑏𝑖𝑗 = 𝑘 ∑𝑘𝑘=1 𝑏𝑖𝑗𝑘 , 𝑐𝑖𝑗 = 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑘 {𝑐𝑖𝑗𝑘 } (17)

The aggregated fuzzy weights 𝑤

̃ 𝑖𝑗 of each criterion are calculated as

(𝑤
̃𝑗 ) = (𝑤𝑗1 , 𝑤𝑗2 , 𝑤𝑗3 ) (18)

Here,
1
𝑤𝑗1 = 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑘 {𝑤𝑗𝑘1 }, 𝑤𝑗2 = 𝑘 ∑𝐾
𝑘=1 𝑤𝑗𝑘2 , 𝑤𝑗3 = 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑘 {𝑤𝑗𝑘3 } (19)

Step 5: then construction of the fuzzy decision matrix:

𝑥̃11 𝑥̃12 … 𝑥̃1𝑛
̃ = ( 𝑥̃21 𝑥̃22 … 𝑥̃2𝑛 )
𝐷
⋮ ⋮ … ⋮
𝑥̃𝑚1 𝑥̃𝑚2 … 𝑥
̃𝑚𝑛

9
̃ = (𝑤
𝑊 ̃1 , 𝑤 ̃𝑛 )
̃2, … … , 𝑤
Here the linguistic variables 𝑥̃𝑖𝑗 , ∀𝑖, 𝑗 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤 ̃𝑗 , 𝑖 = 1,2, … . , 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2, … . , 𝑛 can be
approximated by positive fuzzy numbers 𝑥̃𝑖𝑗 = (𝑎𝑖𝑗 , 𝑏𝑖𝑗 , 𝑐𝑖𝑗 ) and 𝑤
̃ 𝑖𝑗 = (𝑤𝑗1 , 𝑤𝑗2 , 𝑤𝑗3 ).

Step 6: After the construction of fuzzy decision matrix, it is normalized. The normalization
formula makes simple by transforming the various criteria scales into comparable scale through
linear scale transformation. Through this, we have the normalized fuzzy decision matrix 𝑅̃ [51].

𝑅̃ = [𝑟̃𝑖𝑗 ]𝑚∗𝑛 𝑖 = 1,2, … . , 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2, … . . , 𝑛 (19)

Where
𝑎 𝑏 𝑐
𝑟̃𝑖𝑗 = ( 𝑐𝑖𝑗∗ , 𝑐𝑖𝑗∗ , 𝑐𝑖𝑗∗ ),
𝑗 𝑗 𝑗

𝑐𝑗∗ = 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑖 𝑐𝑖𝑗

Step 7: The weighted normalized fuzzy decision matrix 𝑣̃ is the product of criteria’s importance
weight (𝑤
̃𝑗 ) and values in the normalized fuzzy decision matrix 𝑟̃𝑖𝑗 .

𝑣̃ = [𝑣̃𝑖𝑗 ]𝑚∗𝑛 𝑖 = 1,2, . . . . , 𝑚 ; 𝑗 = 1,2, … . . , 𝑛 (20)

𝑣̃𝑖𝑗 = 𝑟̃𝑖𝑗 ∗ 𝑤
̃𝑗

Step 8:
Next the Fuzzy positive ideal solution (FPIS, 𝑆 + ) and fuzzy negative ideal solution (FNIS, 𝑆 − )
are defined as:
𝑆 + = (𝑣̃1+ , 𝑣̃2+ , … … , 𝑣̃𝑛+ ) (21)

Where 𝑣̃𝑗+ = 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑖 {𝑣𝑖𝑗3 }, 𝑖 = 1,2, … . . , 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2, … … , 𝑛

𝑆 − = (𝑣̃1− , 𝑣̃2− , … … , 𝑣̃𝑛− ) (22)

Where 𝑣̃𝑗− = 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖 {𝑣𝑖𝑗1 }, 𝑖 = 1,2, … . . , 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2, … … , 𝑛

Step 9:
Compute the distance (𝑑𝑖+ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑖− ) of each alternative 𝑖 = 1,2, … . . , 𝑚 from the FPIS and FNIS
are as follows:

𝑑𝑖+ = ∑𝑛𝑗=1 𝑑𝑣 (𝑣̃𝑖𝑗 , 𝑣̃𝑗+ ) , 𝑖 = 1,2, … . , 𝑚 (23)

𝑑𝑖− = ∑𝑛𝑗=1 𝑑𝑣 (𝑣̃𝑖𝑗 , 𝑣̃𝑗− ) , 𝑖 = 1,2, … . , 𝑚 (24)

Where the distance measurement between two fuzzy numbers 𝑎̃ and 𝑏̃ are 𝑑𝑣 (𝑎̃, 𝑏̃)

Step 10: The closeness co-efficient (𝐶𝐶𝑖 ) represents the distance to the FPIS 𝑆 + and FNIS 𝑆 −
simultaneously. The 𝐶𝐶𝑖 of each alternative is calculated as [51]:

10
 𝑑𝑖−
𝐶𝐶𝑖 = , 𝑖 = 1,2, … . 𝑚 (25)
𝑑𝑖∗ +𝑑𝑖−

Step 11:
The ranking of the alternatives can be determined by the closeness coefficients (𝐶𝐶𝑖 ). The
alternative holds highest score, which is the closest to FPIS and farthest from FNIS to be treated
as best alternative.
3 Applications in a Hospital Pharmacy.
The research was conducted in multi-specialty hospital, which is located in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu,
India. The hospital constituted about 320 beds with various departments of General medicine,
ENT, Dental, Ortho related, Gynecology, Plastic surgery and Physiotherapy. Nearly, 170 patients
visit the hospital every day as out-patients and average of 250 patients are as in-patients and
three pharmacies are placed within the hospital to service the patients. There are 12 suppliers
supplying medicines to the pharmacies. The study were conducted for a period of 12 months
duration, in that around 43.6% of the overall purchase were found to account for 3 suppliers and
they are considered as alternatives (𝑆1 , 𝑆2 , 𝑆3 ) in the research work. Even though the three
suppliers provided the service but the pharmacy managers are unaware about the best among the
three by considering various criteria. Frequently, they strive hard to fulfill the patient needs due
to stock-outs, supplier delay in delivering the order and improper stock management. One senior
manager and 2 pharmacy managers act as decision makers(𝐷1 , 𝐷2 , 𝐷3 ).
The stock-out data of the pharmacy from January to December 2016 are considered for this
study. Three pharmacies in the hospital premise were facing nearly 10 to 17 percentage of stock
out during the study period. Based on the data collected from the pharmacy, the stock out in
percentile basis faced by the pharmacies are listed for monthly duration presented in Table 3.
Interviewing with managers, it was clear that they are unaware about the inventory management
techniques used for controlling the inventory, parameters influencing inventory and methods to
attain efficient supply chain in the pharmacy. Many suppliers are available in market to provide
better services, but pharmacy managers still experience difficulties in their inventory. So, the
pharmacy managers are in need of an efficient inventory model to control the inventory and
provide uninterrupted service to the customers. In supply chain, the supplier’s role influenced
more in the inventory management. Due to this, the pharmacy managers of hospital need to
select a right supplier from the pool of suppliers. The best alternatives to be selected by the
evaluation of three potential suppliers against five decision criteria. The data required for the
study to be collected from the hospital pharmacy through questionnaire.
The questionnaire is designed based on the criteria (𝐶1 , 𝐶2 , 𝐶3 , 𝐶4 , 𝐶5 ), which influenced in the
selection of alternative suppliers (𝑆1 , 𝑆2 , 𝑆3 ). The criteria to be adopted from the previous studies,
which conducted by Krause et al. [65], Lee et al. [66], Yan et al.[67], Svensson et al. [68],
Gonzale et al. [31]. The response for the weight of criteria can be Little importance (LI),
Moderately importance (MI), Important (I), Very important (VI), Absolutely Important (AI) and
for the alternatives to be Very Low (VL), Low (L), Good (G), High (H), Very High (VH). In
addition, the basic profile such as experience in pharmacy, level of awareness about the
inventory techniques, whether satisfied with the current situation of the pharmacy or not, etc. of
the decision makers are requested to fill at the end of the questionnaire. Initially, the
questionnaire concept and their importance are explained to hospital pharmacy manager and
requested them to fill the questionnaire. The preference of criteria and alternatives over another
is decided by the decision makers and tabulated in Table 9.

11
In hospital, the pharmacy managers are the decision makers and the linguistic judgments about
the selected criteria given by them is to be considered in the evaluation of reliable suppliers. The
notation of three decision makers (𝐷1 , 𝐷2 , 𝐷3 ) and the alternative suppliers (𝑆1 , 𝑆2 , 𝑆3 ) and the
evaluation criteria defined by the decision makers, are as follows:
❖ Cost (𝐶1 ): related to cost of an item, discount provide by the suppliers and percentage of
the return value offer by the supplier.
❖ Delivery (𝐶2 ) : related to lead time, on-time delivery and no limitations in the quantity
of an item to deliver.
❖ Service (𝐶3 ) : related to methods followed for processing the order, warehouse
capabilities, return policies and responsiveness for customer needs.
❖ Flexibility (𝐶4 ) : related to mode of payments accepted by the supplier, due date for
payments, change of order quantity based on demand.
❖ Relationship (𝐶5 ) : related to honesty/trust, reputation of the suppliers in the market,
reliability and ease of communication.
In this study, three pharmacy managers are act as decision makers (𝐷1 , 𝐷2 , 𝐷3 ) and are requested
to evaluating the criteria (𝐶1 , 𝐶2 , 𝐶3 , 𝐶4 , 𝐶5 ). Fig.3 shows the hierarchical structure for the
supplier selection process.

3.1 FAHP application in Hospital Pharmacy

The linguistic variables used by the decision makers for the evaluation of the weights of criteria
and ratings of alternatives are presented in Table 4. The comparative judgments of the decision
makers about the criteria weights are presented in table 5. The fuzzy values to be aggregated by
arithmetic mean of the judgments and the results are presented in Table 6. The fuzzy synthetic
extent value for the criterion matrix are:
1 1 1
𝑆𝐶1 = (9.85, 16.11, 22.33)⨂ ( , , ) = (0.15, 0.37, 0.82)
63.92 43.8 27.16
1 1 1
𝑆𝐶2 = (3.17, 5.24, 8.73)⨂ ( , , ) = (0.05, 0.12, 0.32)
63.92 43.8 27.16
1 1 1
𝑆𝐶3 = (3.27, 4.58, 7.53)⨂ ( , , ) = (0.05, 0.10, 0.28)
63.92 43.8 27.16
1 1 1
𝑆𝐶4 = (8.72, 14.07, 19.44)⨂ ( , , ) = (0.14, 0.32, 0.72)
63.92 43.8 27.16
1 1 1
𝑆𝐶5 = (2.15, 3.8, 5.89)⨂ ( , , ) = (0.03, 0.08, 0.22)
63.92 43.8 27.16
Using Eq. 12, compute the degrees of possibility:
(0.15 − 0.32)
𝑉(𝑆𝐶2 ≥ 𝑆𝐶1 ) = = 0.40 ,
(0.12 − 0.32) − (0.37 − 0.15)
(0.14 − 0.32)
𝑉(𝑆𝐶2 ≥ 𝑆𝐶4 ) = = 0.47
(0.12 − 0.32) − (0.32 − 0.14)

𝑉(𝑆𝐶1 ≥ 𝑆𝐶2 ) = 1, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶1 ≥ 𝑆𝐶3 ) = 1, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶1 ≥ 𝑆𝐶4 ) = 1, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶1 ≥ 𝑆𝐶5 ) = 1

𝑉(𝑆𝐶2 ≥ 𝑆𝐶1 ) = 0.40, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶2 ≥ 𝑆𝐶3 ) = 1, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶2 ≥ 𝑆𝐶4 ) = 0.47, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶2 ≥ 𝑆𝐶5 ) = 1

12
 𝑉(𝑆𝐶3 ≥ 𝑆𝐶1 ) = 0.33, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶3 ≥ 𝑆𝐶2 ) = 0.92, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶3 ≥ 𝑆𝐶4 ) = 0.39, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶3 ≥ 𝑆𝐶5 ) = 1

𝑉(𝑆𝐶4 ≥ 𝑆𝐶1 ) = 0.92, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶4 ≥ 𝑆𝐶2 ) = 1, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶4 ≥ 𝑆𝐶3 ) = 1, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶4 ≥ 𝑆𝐶5 ) = 1

𝑉(𝑆𝐶5 ≥ 𝑆𝐶1 ) = 0.19, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶5 ≥ 𝑆𝐶2 ) = 0.81, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶5 ≥ 𝑆𝐶3 ) = 0.89, 𝑉(𝑆𝐶5 ≥ 𝑆𝐶4 ) = 0.25

Compute the priority weight vector 𝑤 ′ by using Eq (13).

𝑑′ (𝐶1 ) = min(1, 1, 1, 1) = 1
𝑑 ′ (𝐶2 ) = min(0.40, 1, 0.47,1) = 0.40
𝑑′ (𝐶3 ) = min(0.33, 0.92, 0.39, 1) = 0.33
𝑑 ′ (𝐶4 ) = min(0.92, 1, 1, 1) = 0.92
𝑑′ (𝐶5 ) = min(0.19, 0.81, 0.89, 0.25) = 0.25
The priority weight vector of the criteria are 𝑊𝐶′ = (1, 0.40, 0.33, 0.92, 0.25). The normalization
of the weight vector is (0.34, 0.14, 0.11, 0.32, 0.09).
Following the same procedure and weights vectors are computed for the alternative evaluation
matrices. The evaluation matrices are formed by pair wise comparisons of the three alternative
supplier ratings with respect to all the criteria. Similarly, the fuzzy numbers of the supplier
alternative ratings of suppliers with respect to the criteria are rated and weight vector of
alternatives for each criterion are determined reflected in Table 7.
The supplier 𝑺𝟐 which has the highest priority weight is selected as a best supplier for the
hospital pharmacy. By using FAHP, the alternative suppliers ranking order is 𝑺𝟐 > 𝑺𝟑 > 𝑺𝟏 .

3.2 Application with FTOPSIS Method.

In this section, the FTOPSIS method is proposed for the supplier selection problem of the
hospital pharmacy. The Proposed method shown in fig.4.
Fig. 4 details the major three stages involved in the newly proposed TOPSIS method for decision
making process. First step is to evaluate the weight of the criteria and the ratings of the
alternatives by the decision makers. Then the , the values for linguistic variables are specified in
the form of Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFN) [51], as presented in table 8 and 9. The ratings
given by the decision makers are aggregated and shown in Table 10.
Next the fuzzy decision matrix to be formed by converting the linguistic variables listed in table
10 to triangular fuzzy numbers is presented in table 11. Then the normalized fuzzy decision
matrix and weighted normalized decision matrix are formed as shown in Table 12 and Table 13
respectively. The next step is to determine the fuzzy positive ideal solution (FPIS 𝑆 + ) and fuzzy
negative ideal solution (FNIS 𝑆 − ) by using Eq. 21 and Eq. 22.

𝑆 + = [(1.0 ,1.0 ,1.0), (1.0,1.0,1.0), (0.83,0.83,0.83), (1.0,1.0,1.0), (0.83,0.83,0.83) ]

𝑆 − = [(0.25, 0.25, 0.25), (0.15, 0.15, 0.15), (0.08, 0.08, 0.08), (0.19, 0.19, 0.19), (0.08, 0.08, 0.08) ]

The vertex method are used for computing the distance of every alternatives from FPIS and
FNIS with respect to each criterion Eq. 23 and Eq. 24.

13
 1
𝑑(𝑆1 , 𝑆 + ) = √ [(1 − 0.25)2 + (1 − 0.58)2 + (1 − 0.83)2 ] = 0.51
3

1
𝑑(𝑆1 , 𝑆 − ) = √ [(0.25 − 0.25)2 + (0.25 − 0.58)2 + (0.25 − 0.83)2 ] = 0.39
3

The calculation for first alternative is shown below and for remaining alternatives, same
procedure is followed and results are produced as in Table 14 and Table 15. The closeness co-
efficient gives the overall performance of each alternative supplier and it’s calculated by using
Eq. 25.
1.84
𝐶𝐶1 = = 0.40
2.78 + 1.84
2.84
𝐶𝐶2 = = 0.61
1.82 + 2.84
2.6
𝐶𝐶3 = = 0.55
2.1 + 2.6
The ranking order is determined as 𝑆2 > 𝑆3 > 𝑆1 based on the values of the closeness co-
efficient of the three alternatives. The alternative 𝑆2 scored more value is selected as the best
supplier for the hospital pharmacy followed by 𝑆3 and 𝑆1 .

4. Result and Discussion

The FAHP and FTOPSIS are found to be the appropriate method for supplier selection process
and other MCDM problems of hospital pharmacy. Based on the constraints of the MCDM
techniques, the hospital should choose the appropriate method for their problems. In this study,
FAHP and FTOPSIS techniques are adopted and it was found that the supplier 𝑆2 to be the best
supplier among the other. It doesn’t represent that 𝑆1 and 𝑆3 are not the efficient one, because the
analysis carried out based on the criteria suggested by the pharmacy managers. The results may
vary, based on the criterion priority levels by pharmacy managers. Even though supplier 𝑆2 may
not meet all the required criteria, based upon the factors which influence the efficiency of
pharmacy inventory management, the supplier 𝑆2 is found to be the best supplier among the
other two.
The hospital management satisfied with the supplier selection methods for selecting appropriate
supplier. After three months of adoption of this inventory method in hospital pharmacy, the
feedback from the pharmacy managers stated that the efficiency of the pharmacy have
considerably increased, the stock-outs issues got reduced and able to provide better service to the
customer in an affordable price. The ranking results of these two methods produced the same
results. It shows that the decision makers are consistent in providing judgment about the criteria
and alternatives for the evaluation of supplier selection process.
Comparing FAHP and FTOPSIS and summarizing some of the similarities and constraints
between them are as follows:
▪ Based on computation: More computations are involved in FAHP compared to FTOPSIS
▪ Based on pairwise Comparison: No pairwise comparison of criteria and alternatives are in
FTOPSIS.

14
 ▪ Linguistic Variables: Both FAHP and FTOPSIS methods accept the judgment by the
decision makers, here linguistic variables.
▪ In FAHP, the importance or preference of one criterion against other are the only
judgment given by the decision makers during evaluation. If the criteria and alternative
increases, it makes the pairwise comparison clumsy and inconsistencies risk also grows
with them
▪ The drawback of extent analysis of FAHP was not considering the criterion or alternative
for evaluation, if the priority weights of criteria and alternatives results zero
▪ Regarding the agility in decision process, FTOPSIS was found to be ease of application
while considering very few criteria and alternatives.

5. Conclusions
The hospital supply chain is mostly influenced by inventory, it accumulates more budget and lag
in providing uninterrupted service to the customers. The pharmacy managers are in the position
of decision makers to adopt an efficient inventory management, achieved by selecting the
appropriate supplier based on their needs and constraints. The supplier selection process is to
identify a potential supplier from the pool of suppliers, which meets the needs consistently and at
an affordable cost. A new study of supplier selection process in hospital pharmacy was evaluated
by FTOPSIS and FAHP method. During the evaluation process, the decision makers strive hard
to consider the uncertainty and vagueness data in the form of linguistic variables.
To overcome these drawback, the uncertainty and vagueness data are handled efficiently by
utilizing FAHP and FTOPSIS methods and make the decision makers to take effective decision
towards the supplier selection process. The criteria’s considered here for evaluation are cost,
delivery, service, flexibility and relationship to determine the order of suppliers for selecting the
appropriate one. In this study, two methods evaluated the criteria towards the same objective of
supplier selection. In FAHP, the pair wise comparisons to be made for each criteria and
alternatives with respect to criteria are transformed in to triangular fuzzy numbers. Next using
Chang extent analysis to determine the priority weights of criteria and supplier alternatives are
considered [48]. This is for selecting the appropriate supplier based on the priority weights of
the criteria and alternatives.
In FTOPSIS, the linguistic variables are used to judge the criteria importance and then the
variables are converted to fuzzy numbers. Next the fuzzy decision matrix, normalized matrix,
weighted normalized decision matrix were formed. Following that, fuzzy positive and negative
ideal solution were defined and computed the distance of each alternative to FPIS and FNIS.
Lastly, the closeness co-efficient of each alternative was calculated. The ranking order of the
alternative suppliers are determined based on the closeness co-efficient values. Based on FAHP
extent analysis, the suppliers are ranked the same as FTOPSIS method. The pharmacy managers
stated that, the MCDM techniques are quite helpful to improve the overall pharmacy efficiency.
The hospital pharmacy should select the appropriate method for the supplier selection process by
considering the structure of the problem and consistency in their available data.

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Appendix:
Table 1: List of Criteria for Supplier Selection Process.
Criteria Proposed By

20
 Demirtas, Özgürler and Güneri

Lima, Osiro and Carpinetti

Abdulaal,
[6]

Reshma and Kalaichelvi [74]

Buyukozkan and Cifci [60]

Bhutia and Phipon [72]

Chan and Kumar [50]

al.

Ayhan and Kilic [76]

Kahraman et al. [59]
Katsikeas et al. [69]

Kirytopoulous [5]

Bafail,
Ordoobadi [70]
et

Lin et al. [42]

Wang [71]

Kabli.[75]
Guneri

Taylan,
[73]

[23]
Cost/Price X X X X X X X X X X X X
Quality X X X X X X X X X X X X
Flexibility X X X X X X X
Delivery X X X X X X X X X
Financial X X X X X X
Status
Reputation X X X X X X
Relationship X X X X
Ease of X X X X X X
Communicati
on
Delivery X X X X X
Reliability
Service X X X X X X X
Location X X X X X
Technical X X X X X X X
Capability

Table 2. Various Supplier Selection Methods.

Methods for Prequalification of Suppliers Categorical Methods, Data Envelopment

Various Supplier Selection

Analysis (DEA), Cluster Analysis.

AHP, TOPSIS, ANP, MAUT, PROMETHEE,
Multi-Criteria Decision Making Techniques
ELECTRE, VIKOR, etc.
Combined MCDM Approaches AHP + TOPSIS, AHP + MOLP, MAUT + LP
Mathematical Programming Models Linear Programming, MOLP, Goal Programming
Case Based Reasoning, Artificial Neural
Methods

Artificial Intelligence Methods

Network
Fuzzy Logic Approaches Fuzzy Logic with AHP, ANP, TOPSIS, etc

Table 3: The stock-out percentage of the pharmacies during the period of Jan to Dec – 2016.

Period - 2016 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

21
Pharmacy 1 12 14 16 16 15 17 12 14 13 13 13 11

Pharmacy 2 16 13 13 15 12 14 13 16 11 13 14 17

Pharmacy 3 13 14 13 16 14 17 13 12 16 14 14 15

Table 4: Linguistic scale for rating of criteria weights and alternatives.

Linguistic variables Triangular fuzzy number
Equally preferable (EQ) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0)
Slightly preferable (SP) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0)
Fairly preferable (FP) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0)
Extremely preferable (XP) (5.0, 7.0, 9.0)
Absolutely preferable (AP) (7.0, 9.0, 9.0)

Table 5: Comparative judgments made by decision makers towards the criteria weights.
𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5
𝐷1
𝐶1 (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0)
𝐶2 (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0)
𝐶3 (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) (0.20, 0.33, 1.0) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0)
𝐶4 (1.0, 1.0, 3.0) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0) (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0)
𝐶5 (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)

𝐷2
𝐶1 (1.0,1.0,1.0) (5.0, 7.0, 9.0) (7.0. 9.0, 9.0) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0)
𝐶2 (0.11, 0.14, 0.2) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (0.14, 0.20, 0.33) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0)
𝐶3 (0.11, 0.11, 0.14) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (0.11, 0.11, 0.14) (0.20, 0.33, 1.0)
𝐶4 (0.14, 0.2, 0.33) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0) (7.0, 9.0, 9.0) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0)
𝐶5 (0.14, 0.2, 0.33) (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0) (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (1.0,1.0,1.0)

𝐷3
𝐶1 (1.0,1.0,1.0) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0) (0.20, 0.33, 1.0) (1.0, 3.0, 5.0)
𝐶2 (0.14, 0.2, 0.33) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0) (0.14, 0.20, 0.33) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0)
𝐶3 (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (0.14, 0.20, 0.33) (1.0, 1.0, 3.0)
𝐶4 (1.0, 3.0, 5.0) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (3.0, 5.0, 7.0)
𝐶5 (0.2, 0.33, 1.0) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (0.33, 1.0, 1.0) (0.14, 0.2, 0.33) (1.0,1.0,1.0)

Table 6. Fuzzy evaluation matrix towards Supplier selection

𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5
𝐶1 (1.0,1.0,1.0) (3.0, 4.33, 6.33) (3.0, 5.0, 6.33) (1.18, 2.11, 3) (1.67, 3.67, 5.67)
𝐶2 (0.19, 0.45, 0.51) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (0.71, 0.73, 2.11) (0.27, 0.73, 0.78) (1.0, 2.33, 4.33)
𝐶3 (0.17, 0.26, 0.71) (1.22, 2.33, 3.0) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (0.15, 0.21, 0.49) (0.73, 0.78, 2.33)
𝐶4 (0.71, 1.40, 1.44) (1.67, 2.33, 4.33) (3.67, 5.67, 7) (1.0,1.0,1.0) (1.67, 3.67, 5.67)
𝐶5 (0.18, 0.29, 0.78) (0.24, 0.55, 1.0) (0.55, 1.67, 2.33) (0.18, 0.29, 0.78) (1.0,1.0,1.0)

22
Table 7. Weight vectors of the criteria and supplier alternatives

𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5 Alternative priority weight

𝑆1 0.80 0.80 0.63 0.69 1.00 0.76
𝑆2 1.00 0.77 0.76 0.78 0.93 0.86
𝑆3 0.71 0.97 1.00 0.83 0.69 0.81
Weights of
0.34 0.14 0.11 0.32 0.09
Criteria
Overall Ranking 𝑺𝟐 > 𝑺𝟑 > 𝑺𝟏

Table 8: Linguistic Scale to evaluate the criteria weight.

Linguistic Variables for Triangular Fuzzy
criteria weight Numbers (TFN)
Little importance (VI) (0.0, 0.0, 0.25)
Moderately important (MI) (0.0, 0.25, 0.50)
Important (I) (0.25, 0.50, 0.75)
Very Important (VI) (0.50, 0.75, 1.0)
Absolutely Important (AI) (0.75, 1.0, 1.0)

Table 9: Linguistic Scale to evaluate the ratings of the alternative suppliers.

Linguistic Variables Triangular Fuzzy
for ratings Numbers (TFN)
Very low (VL) (0.0, 0.0, 2.5)
Low (L) (0.0, 2.5, 5.0)
Good (G) (2.5, 5.0, 7.5)
High (H) (5.0, 7.5, 10.0)
Excellent (VH) (7.5, 10.0, 10.0)

Table 10: Linguistic ratings of the alternative suppliers by three decision makers.
𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5

D1
𝑆1 G G G H H
𝑆2 VH H VH H VH
𝑆3 H VH G VH VH
Weights of criteria AI AI VI AI I

D2
𝑆1 H G G G L
𝑆2 VH VH H VH H
𝑆3 H VH G H H
Weights of criteria AI VI I VI VI

23
D3
𝑆1 G G G G G
𝑆2 VH VH H VH VH
𝑆3 H VH G VH VH
Weights of criteria AI VI I AI I

Table 11: Fuzzy decision matrix and fuzzy weights of three alternative suppliers.
𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5
𝑆1 (3.33, 5.83, 8.33) (2.5, 5.0 , 7.5) (2.5, 5.0, 7.5) (3.33, 5.83, 8.33) (2.5, 5.0, 7.5)
𝑆2 (7.5, 10.0, 10.0) (6.66, 9.17, 10.0) (5.83, 8.33, 10.0) (6.66, 9.17, 10.0) (6.66, 9.17, 10.0)
𝑆3 (5.0, 7.5, 10.0) (7.5, 10.0, 10.0) (2.5, 5.0, 7.5) (6.66, 9.17, 10.0) (6.66, 9.17, 10.0)
Weights
(0.75, 1.00, 1.00) (0.58, 0.83, 1.00) (0.33, 0.58, 0.83) (0.58, 0.83, 1.00) (0.33, 0.58, 0.83)
of criteria

Table 12. The normalized fuzzy decision matrix.

𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5
𝑆1 (0.33, 0.58, 0.83) (0.25, 0.5, 0.75) (0.25, 0.5, 0.75) (0.33, 0.58, 0.83) (0.25, 0.5, 0.75)
𝑆2 (0.75, 1.00, 1.00) (0.67, 0.92, 1.00) (0.58, 0.83, 1.00) (0.67, 0.92, 1.00) (0.67, 0.92, 1.00)
𝑆3 (0.5, 0.75, 1.00) (0.75, 1.00, 1.00) (0.25, 0.5, 0.75) (0.67, 0.92, 1.00) (0.67, 0.92, 1.00)

Table 13. The weighted normalized decision matrix.

𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5
𝑆1 (0.25, 0.58, 0.83) (0.15, 0.42, 0.75) (0.08, 0.29, 0.62) (0.19, 0.48, 0.83) (0.08, 0.29, 0.62)
𝑆2 (0.56, 1.00, 1.00) (0.39, 0.76, 1.00) (0.19, 0.48, 0.83) (0.39, 0.76, 1.00) (0.22, 0.53, 0.83)
𝑆3 (0.38, 0.75, 1.00) (0.44, 0.83, 1.00) (0.08, 0.29, 0.62) (0.39, 0.76, 1.00) (0.22, 0.53, 0.83)

Table 14: Distance of the ratings between 𝑆𝑖 (𝑖 = 1,2,3) and 𝑆 + w.r.to criterion
𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5
𝑑(𝑆1 , 𝑆 + ) 0.51 0.61 0.55 0.56 0.55
𝑑(𝑆2 , 𝑆 + ) 0.25 0.38 0.42 0.38 0.39
𝑑(𝑆3 , 𝑆 + ) 0.39 0.34 0.55 0.38 0.39

Table 15: Distance of the ratings between 𝑆𝑖 (𝑖 = 1,2,3) and 𝑆 − w.r.to criterion
𝐶1 𝐶2 𝐶3 𝐶4 𝐶5
−)
𝑑(𝑆1 , 𝑆 0.39 0.38 0.33 0.41 0.33
𝑑(𝑆2 , 𝑆 − ) 0.64 0.62 0.49 0.58 0.51
𝑑(𝑆3 , 𝑆 − ) 0.53 0.65 0.33 0.58 0.51

24
Table 16: Computations of 𝑑𝑖+ , 𝑑𝑖− and 𝐶𝐶𝑖
𝑆1 𝑆2 𝑆3 Ranking order
𝑑𝑖+ 2.78 1.82 2.1
𝑑𝑖− 1.84 2.84 2.6 𝑆2 > 𝑆3 > 𝑆1
𝐶𝐶𝑖 0.40 0.61 0.55

Fig. 1 Triangular Fuzzy number ̃

𝑀.

Fig 2: The intersection between 𝑚1 and 𝑚2 [60]

25
 Fig. 3 Hierarchical structure of the supplier selection process.

Fig. 4. The steps of proposed TOPSIS method.

26

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