Abstract:
The leather industry of Bangladesh has been playing a significant role in the national economy by exporting its leather and leather goods worldwide for many years. In a competitive and turbulent business environment, leather industry managers must select appropriate suppliers who can support the outputs of their organizations and the total supply chain. Traditionally, in this industry, suppliers are selected based on raw material quality, cost, and the lead time to supply the required materials or components. Such a traditional supplier selection process cannot introduce various issues, for example, the e-commerce system, skill sharing, and the ability to recover or restore from supply chain disruptions. Thus, this research aimed to contribute to the literature by integrating such issues into the traditional supplier selection models for this industry. To achieve this aim, this research used the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and complex proportional assessment (COPRAS). FAHP helps determine the significance of the criteria, and COPRAS provides the ranking of suppliers for the leather industry. A list of twenty-four sub-criteria for supplier selection based on the eight perspectives of lean, agile, and resilient (LAR) suppliers in the leather industry is picked from the literature and experts’ opinions. Then the relative weight of each sub-criteria is calculated by the FAHP. Results indicate that the top seven important sub-criteria of supplier selection are product price (0.291), product performance (0.258), warranties and claim policies (0.124), lead time (0.113), responsiveness (0.059), logistics costs (0.048), and e-commerce systems (0.039). Therefore, by using COPRAS, the best LAR supplier among the four suppliers of a footwear manufacturing company was evaluated. The results compare the LAR performance and highlight the capacity gap of selective sub-criteria among the four companies. According to the suggested approach, industrial managers may find it useful to determine which supplier offers the greatest LAR criteria and meet up to gain an advantage in the marketplace.