An integrated fuzzy‐AHP‐LP (FAHLP) approach for supplier selection and purchasing decisions

Supplier selection of a telecommunications system is an important problem to a telecommunications company as the telecommunications system is a long‐term investment for the company and the success of telecommunications services is directly affected by the supplier selection decision (Tam and Tummala, 2001). The aim of this study is to model for supplier selection problem for a real world application in India which is the most populated country in world. A number of conflicting qualitative and often accompanied by ambiguities and vagueness. This makes fuzzy logic a more natural approach to this kind of multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) problems. The paper proposes a combined MCDM methodology. Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and linear programming (LP) are utilised for assigning weights of the criteria for supplier selection and linear programming (technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution) is used to determine the most suitable alternative using these criteria weights.