Supplier selection in the presence of dual‐role factors, non‐discretionary inputs and weight restrictions

The decision of supplier selection is strategic and crucial to the success of corporations. For selecting suppliers, data envelopment analysis (DEA), as a multiple criteria decision‐making tool, has been applied for several times. However, there may exist some particular situations in supplier selection problem; i.e. (1) the presence of dual‐role factor which may be classified either an input or an output. The quantity of such a factor may influence the relative efficiency of the suppliers, (2) the presence of non‐discretionary or exogenously fixed inputs; in any realistic situation, there may exist non‐discretionary criteria that are beyond the control of a management and (3) the presence of weight restrictions; sometimes it is needed to incorporate the preferences of managers and decision‐makers into DEA model which is used to select suppliers. The objective of this paper is to propose a DEA model for selecting suppliers in the presence of dual‐role factors, non‐discretionary inputs and weight restrictions. A numerical example demonstrates the application of the proposed model.