A decision model for supplier selection in the presence of dual-role factors

Best suppliers help manufacturers to gain and sustain a competitive advantage by improving product quality, reducing cost, shortening lead‐time and so on. The crucial role played by suppliers in a supply chain renders the selection of a supplier or suppliers a significant work that attracts the attention of both researchers and practitioners. In the literature, data envelopment analysis (DEA) as a nonparametric technique is often applied to conduct a performance analysis. Little attention, however, has been paid to dual‐role factors in the supplier selection process. This paper proposes a novel two‐step approach to select suppliers in the presence of dual‐role factors. As a combination of DEA and two‐person zero‐sum game theory, our work considers the strategic behaviour of the external environment and is able to handle the supplier selection in a competitive environment. Moreover, the proposed model circumvents the requirement to specify the status of a dual‐role factor ahead of an evaluation and is easy to solve. Finally, the applicability of the procedure is illustrated by an application to a data set of 18 suppliers.