Positioning of Distribution Network Commodities Using the Kraljic Portfolio Matrix

Kraljic portfolio matrix has been widely used in purchasing as an effective diagnostic tool. Despite its popularity, the matrix has been criticized for subjective in categorizing commodities. In this paper, a quantitative model to position distribution network commodities with Kraljic portfolio matrix is proposed. Attributes for supply risk and profit impact are identified first. Questionnaire survey is then conducted to get the relative weight of every attribute and the performance score. To deal with experts' qualitative assessments, triangular fuzzy number is applied to convert experts' linguistic assessment into accurate numbers. As a numerical illustration, 12 kinds of distribution network commodities with the largest purchasing amount of Hubei Grid (from year 2013 to 2017) are selected for positioning.