Supplier selection in an agent based pharmaceutical supply chain: An application of TOPSIS and PROMETHEE Π

Having a supply chain is an unavoidable fact and all companies should focus on if they wish to survive in the competitive business world. This paper ranks criteria influencing on behavior of a medicine manufacturer agent when its goal is to select the supplier agents to interact with across a pharmaceutical agent based supply chain. The pharmaceutical industry is important for countries due to the distinguished role of health in societies and Iran is not an exception too. Besides, the industry in this country is encountered with some limitations because of the situation imposed by sanctions. In this study, first, ten criteria were selected based on expert’s opinions, two categories of quantitative as well as qualitative criteria were chosen for ranking the criteria and then TOPSIS and PROMETHEE ? methods were applied to rank the criteria. According to the results of this survey, qualitative criteria were determined as important factors influencing on supplier selection.