A novel hesitant fuzzy WASPAS method for assessment of green supplier problem based on exponential information measures

The main goal of green supply chain management is to minimize the injurious ecological impacts in all activities and phases of a supply chain. Evaluating the suppliers and selecting the best one based on environmental criteria can facilitate us to reach the objective of green supply chain management. As the assessment generally consists of various alternatives over different criteria, green supplier selection is regarded as a multi-criteria decision-making problem. Hesitant fuzzy set, which is an extension of fuzzy set, is an effective tool to handle the vagueness in such a way that hesitant and flawed information by allowing the degree of belongingness for a green supplier selection over the evaluation criteria. In this paper, an integrated method is developed based on Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS) approach to solve the multi-criteria decision-making problems with hesitant fuzzy information. This method is based on hesitant fuzzy operators, some improvement in the conventional WASPAS approach and a procedure for calculating the criteria weights. To calculate the criteria and decision expert weights, we propose new information measures for hesitant fuzzy sets and combine entropy and divergence measures for criteria weights, while we use similarity measure for decision expert weights. Since the uncertainty is an inevitable feature of multi-criteria decision-making problems, the developed approach can be a useful tool for uncertain multi-criteria decision-making atmosphere. Next, a green supplier selection problem is taken to show the usefulness of the developed approach in real-life decision-making problems. The results of this study found that the most significant criteria for green supplier selection were management commitment (0.3119), environmental management system (0.2259) and green product (0.2010). Also, we demonstrate a sensitivity analysis over different parameter values and sets of criteria weight to illustrate the stability of the developed method. Finally, the outcome developed approach with existing approaches is compared to validate the developed method. [Display omitted] •A novel method based on WASPAS approach is developed with HFSs.•Various information measures are proposed for calculating experts and criteria weights.•The modifications of the WASPAS approach, HF-operators and criteria weights assessment process are implemented.•The developed method is implemented for a green supplier selection problem.