Small Series Fashion Supplier Selection Using MCDM Methods

In fashion supply chain management, the selection of suppliers is a critical and integral part of overall business processes. Due to the advent of e-commerce business models, it is increasingly becoming challenging to select the appropriate criteria among many conflicting, inconsistent, and contradictory ones based on which supplier selection problem can be solved. In this chapter, authors aim to address this challenge by using MCDM methods, viz., AHP, TOPSIS, and Fuzzy-TOPSIS. The research problem in this chapter revolves around the challenge of selecting the best suppliers considering the range of criteria from retailers’ point of view. A questionnaire-based survey approach is adopted to evaluate and identify highly important qualitative and quantitative criteria. The respondents of the survey include supply chain managers from the four fashion companies in Europe that produce range of customized fashion and luxury products. Furthermore, participants evaluated their suppliers based on each relevant criterion using linguistic scales. It is demonstrated that the results from this study provide suitable approach for dealing with complex supplier selection criteria and the pool of competing suppliers in the market. Authors envisage that this chapter will provide valuable insights and contribute to the enhanced group decision-making in the fashion industry in regard to supplier selection.