A multi-criteria decision making approach for supplier selection in the flexible packaging industry

The supplier selection problem represents one of the most important components of the supply chain management. This article presents a multiple criteria decision making analysis contributing to the selection of the most convenient supplier in the flexible packaging industry. Due to the fact that in today's supply chain management, the performance of potential suppliers is evaluated against multiple criteria rather than taking into account only the cost factor, the appropriate criteria in the supplier selection have been identified, and the considered variants are assessed, considering the decision maker’s preferences and existing constraints. The variants are ranked in terms of their suitability for selecting a supplier with the use of Electre III method. The results obtained from the simulation experiment suggest that this methodology is a feasible decision support model.