Evaluating sustainable supply chain indicators using fuzzy AHP: Case of Indian automotive industry
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainability in supply chain is gaining attention in recent years due to environmental concern, enforced legislation, green issues, social responsibility, etc. Sustainable supply chain (SSC) has revolved around the various dimensions including economy, environment and societal factors since its inception. The purpose of this paper is to identify, prioritize and evaluate the indicators of SSC so that organizations can cultivate strategies to implement them on priority.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a methodology based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to prioritize the indicators of SSC. A numerical analysis of Indian automotive industry is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method considered fuzzy framework that can handle impreciseness and uncertainty. Sensitivity analysis is also performed to test the robustness of the proposed model.
Findings
Potential indicators are identified from relevant literature and validated by industry experts. This research finalizes the SSC indicators under three dimensions so that prioritization of identified indicators can be developed and the insights relationship of factors would be explored. The results of the study found that environmental and social dimensions of sustainability contribute more toward the sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to identify evaluation factors and other factors have not been identified and categorized. Evaluation is done by experts in this area so it is natural that views of decision makers may be subjective and vary with regard to industry type, priorities, resources, etc.
Practical implications
This study will help industry to identify, evaluate and prioritize factors for successful implementation of sustainability in their supply chain. Automotive companies could device these factors by applying the outcome of the study in their operations with higher priority to integrate sustainability in their supply chain.
Originality/value
These factors are identified to implement sustain ability into supply chain practices for automotive industry.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are very much thankful to Dr A. Gunasekaran (Editor-in-Chief, BIJ) who provided the opportunity and motivated the authors to submit their paper, and the authors are also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of this paper for their constructive and helpful comments that improved the quality of the paper.
Citation
Kumar, D. and Garg, C.P. (2017), "Evaluating sustainable supply chain indicators using fuzzy AHP: Case of Indian automotive industry", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 1742-1766. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-11-2015-0111
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited