Green Supplier Evaluation and Selection Using Cloud Model Theory and the QUALIFLEX Method

Ke-Qin Wang, Hu-Chen Liu, Liping Liu and Jia Huang
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Ke-Qin Wang: School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Hu-Chen Liu: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
Liping Liu: Business School, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Jia Huang: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: Nowadays, companies have to improve their practices in the management of green supply chain with increased awareness of environmental issues worldwide. Selecting the optimum green supplier is crucial for green supply chain management, which is a challenging multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. Moreover, while evaluating the performance of alternative suppliers, decision makers tend to determine their assessments using linguistic descriptors due to experts’ vague knowledge and information deficiency. Therefore, this paper develops an integrated MCDM model based on the cloud model and QUALIFLEX (qualitative flexible multiple criteria method) approach to assess the green performance of companies under economic and environmental criteria. For the introduced model, the linguistic terms, expressed in normal clouds, are utilized to assess alternatives against each selection criterion. A linear programming model is established to compute the weights of criteria with unknown or incompletely known weight information. An extended QUALIFLEX approach is proposed and used to select the most suitable green supplier. Finally, the proposed green supplier selection method is demonstrated by an empirical example of an auto manufacturer to confirm its rationality and effectiveness.

Keywords: green supply chain management; supplier selection; cloud model; QUALIFLEX approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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