A New Method for Selecting the Most Appropriate Suppliers in the Supply Chain using DEA

Evaluation and selection of efficient suppliers is accepted as one of the key issues in supply chain management (SCM). The research problem here is a specific mode of suppliers in a supply chain with a multistage system, consisting of several components. Each component is also regarded as a phase in a supply-chain network (SCN) with a number of inputs and outputs that are being produced independently and simultaneously. Moreover, each input is generated from different modes and there are many output indicators. The main purpose of this study is to propose a new method for selecting the most appropriate suppliers in a SCN using data envelopment analysis (DEA) strategies. The premise is that, a SCN space can be transformed into a DEA one considering the occurrence of input/output mode in each phase in the SCN as a decision-making unit (DMU), and the relative efficiency of each possible mode in each phase of the given network can be obtained via DMUs. Finally, the component endowed with the highest efficiency can be selected as the most appropriate supplier.