Fuzzy decision guided component supplier selection

Global market today demands rapid introduction of products while maintaining high quality and minimal costs. To accomplish the goals in a timely and efficient manner, companies are considering the power of collaboration across the product lifecycle. This paper proposes a fuzzy decision guided method to optimize the component supplier selection in a dynamic collaborative environment. An objective function is advanced to formalize the component supplier selection problem. Fuzzy factors, fuzzy decision of the selection and their relations are analyzed. A fuzzy decisions based optimization algorithm is developed to select a set of suppliers that can provide the components at low prices and in time.