Supplier selection in the presence of dual-role factors, non-discretionary inputs and weight restrictions

The decision of supplier selection is strategic and crucial to the success of corporations. For selecting suppliers, data envelopment analysis (DEA), as a multiple criteria decision-making tool, has been applied for several times. However, there may exist some particular situations in supplier selection problem; i.e. (1) the presence of dual-role factor which may be classified either an input or an output. The quantity of such a factor may influence the relative efficiency of the suppliers, (2) the presence of non-discretionary or exogenously fixed inputs; in any realistic situation, there may exist nondiscretionary criteria that are beyond the control of a management and (3) the presence of weight restrictions; sometimes it is needed to incorporate the preferences of managers and decision-makers into DEA model which is used to select suppliers. The objective of this paper is to propose a DEA model for selecting suppliers in the presence of dual-role factors, non-discretionary inputs and weight restrictions. A numerical example demonstrates the application of the proposed model.