An application of expert system approach for supplier evaluation and selection

The conditions of global competition are becoming more difficult in all the industries. All companies are competing with global and local rivals. Suppliers have played a crucial role for companies to outperform their rivals in competitive markets. This increases the importance of the supplier evaluation and selection process which is a multi-dimensional decision making process containing various variables, quantitative and qualitative criteria, heuristics and experiences of managers. Development of expert systems simulating this multidimensional problem solving process of a human being, has gained importance in the past years. The aim of this study is to point out the importance of supplier evaluation and selection in the buying process and also to develop an expert system for supplier evaluation and selection. The proposed expert system is called as ESforSES (An Expert System for Supplier Evaluation and Selection. ESforSES was applied in a large-scale electronic company. The results of the application shows that ESforSES is a reliable and objective system for evaluating and selecting of the suppliers and it may be utilized by small and medium sized companies by making some modifications and improvements according to their requirements and strategies. (c) 2006 PICMET.