Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive method for the evaluation and selection of suppliers’ offers in food industry. The supplier/vendor selection is a decision-making problem at the strategic management level that involves a semi-structured process. The inclusion of both tangible and intangible criteria in evaluation and selection of the best among the offers provided by various suppliers is a complex problem. Along with this the complexity of supply chain relationships and enterprise strategies especially within enterprise clusters aggravates decision making. Application of supply chain concepts has been made in service industry as no such work has been attempted earlier. Personnel qualification roster (PQR) coffee company is selected which is offering specialty coffee along with fusion food through its more than 130 outlets. Food and drink supply chain is relatively new domain and in India not much work has been done. Analytic hierarchy process(ANP) is solved with the help of software “super decisions”. The case study validates the applicability of proposed models and provides insight in to the role of intangible factors in decisions related to supply chain. The recommendations made will not only result in stream lining of supply chain processes in PQR coffee company but will result in substantial savings also due to reduced lead time, reduced inventory level, better service level and effective control and coordination among the partners.

Key words: Inbound supply chain, intangibles, analytic hierarchy process (ANP), vendor selection.