An ERP model for supplier selection in electronics industry

Asus Tech. is the largest motherboard manufacturer in Taiwan. Hundreds of suppliers cooperate with the company in business. So that supplier selection is the most important function of a purchasing department in the enterprise. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in the process of supplier selection may result in the great savings in both costs and man hours. In the concept of push and pull, an ERP system acts as an efficient tool in the resource integration and profit creation for a company. Through ERP, a decision manager can clearly realize the strength and weakness of the purchasing operation. To establish a real-time purchasing environment, a methodology of analytic network process (ANP), technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and linear programming (LP) are effectively applied in the supplier selection process. ANP and TOPSIS are used to calculate the weight and give suppliers a ranking; LP effectively allocates order quantity to each vendor. As to the result, four PC board suppliers are given orders for 1200, 727, 1000 and 73 pieces.