How supplier selection criteria affects business performance? A study of UK automotive sector

According to KPMG international (2015), global sales of automobiles are forecasted to reach 73.9 million vehicles and expected to hit 100 million units in the next two years. This shows that automotive sector has a tremendous growth potential and UK automotive sector is no different. However, in recent years the growing environmental awareness has become a major concern for automotive sector as they are faced with pressure of reducing carbon emissions as well as the costs. Suppliers play a significant role in achieving environmental goals set by organisations. Under these circumstances it is worth exploring the criteria that are used in assessing suppliers including the green aspects and how that affects the business performance. Design/methodology/approach: This research adopts a mixed method research approach. In order to collect the quantitative data a survey questionnaire was constructed and sent to automotive businesses listed in the FAME database. In order to triangulate the findings of this study, survey was complemented with in-depth interviews. Around 100 automotive manufacturers were invited for the survey however only 38 usable responses were received. In total seven semi-structured interviews were also conducted with people from different backgrounds and work experiences in the automotive sector. Findings: Literature identified delivery, cost, quality and technology as the supplier assessment criteria commonly used in assessing suppliers in automotive industries. Yet the issue of culture and green supply chain practices (GSP) were also widely concerned in several studies. The data analysis showed that delivery, quality, cost, technology, culture are correlated with exception of green supply chain practices. GSP was only found to be correlated with technology and cultural criteria. Semi-structured interviews suggest delivery and quality as the most important criteria when assessing supplier because of their greater impact toward business performance and reputation. Findings from all respondents also showed that most automotive manufacturers have already adopted environmental competency in their criteria. However, interviewees mentioned that this criterion does not take a major role in assessment compared with other criteria. The results also indicate that all factors studied do affect the business performance of automotive organisations. Value: This study contributes to the limited literature focused on assessing supplier selection criteria and business performance linkage in the UK automotive organisations. In addition, most studies on supplier selection and business performance ignore the green practices as important criteria which this study aims to address. Research limitations/implications: The study is based on the findings from a limited survey responses and semi-structured interviews. Having larger sample population would certainly improve the validity of the findings. The perspective of SMEs and large businesses with regard to each supplier selection criterion may be different hence the future research in this domain would also provide some valuable contributions. Practical implications: The survey responses indicate green supply practices as one of the important criteria in supplier selection. This suggests that automotive manufacturers should realize the importance of green practices while selecting their suppliers. This will help them to meet their own green goals while simultaneously meeting the government environmental.Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan ▪ Economic Development Bureau, Kaohsiung, Taiwan ▪ National Kaohsiung First University of Science & Tech, Taiwan ▪ National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan ▪ Taiwan International Ports Corp. Ltd. ▪ Jade Yachts Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. ▪ International Academy for Marine Economy and Technology, The University of Nottingham Ningbo Campus, China ▪ The Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, The University of Nottingham, U

A methodology to select suppliers to increase sustainability within supply chains

[EN] Sustainability practice within supply chains remains in an early development phase. Enterprises still need tools that support the integration of sustainability strategy into their activity, and to align their sustainability strategy with the supplier selection process. This paper proposes a methodology using a multi-criteria technique to support supplier selection decisions by taking two groups of inputs that integrate sustainability performance: supply chain performance and supplier assessment criteria. With the proposed methodology, organisations will have a tool to select suppliers based on their development towards sustainability and on their alignment with the supply chain strategy towards sustainability. The methodology is applied to an agri-food supply chain to assess sustainability in the supplier selection process.The authors of this publication acknowledge the contribution of Project GV/2017/065 'Development of a decision support tool for the management and improvement of sustainability in supply chains', funded by the Regional Valencian Government. Also, the authors acknowledge Project 691249, RUC-APS: Enhancing and implementing knowledge-based ICT solutions within high risk and uncertain conditions for agriculture production systems (www.ruc-aps.eu), funded by the European Union according to funding scheme H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015.Verdecho Sáez, MJ.; Alarcón Valero, F.; Pérez Perales, D.; Alfaro Saiz, JJ.; Rodríguez Rodríguez, R. (2021). A methodology to select suppliers to increase sustainability within supply chains. 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Response of Fresh Food Suppliers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management of Large European Retailers

This article analyses new supply chain management (SCM) strategies of the largest retail distribution chains in Europe within the context of differing sustainability concepts and approaches. An analysis is carried out of the strategic plans of such retailers, as well as recent developments in the sector. We begin by identifying the priority actions of retailers and then evaluating, by means of a survey, how small horticultural marketing firms (mainly cooperatives) in southeast Spain respond to the needs of these retailers. Subsequently, an analysis is carried out on these small marketing firm exporters to identify the relative weight which they assign to the variables assessed, while also considering the existing relationships between said weighted variables and business profits. Our results show that retailers tend to establish more simplified supply chains (that is, shorter and more vertical), essentially demonstrating their interpretation of a sustainable supply chain. In contrast, horticultural marketing firms have concentrated more on tactical and operational issues, thereby neglecting environmental, social and logistics management. Thus, their success rate in meeting the sustainability demands of their customers can be considered medium-low, requiring a more proactive attitude. Improved and collaborative relations, and the integration of sustainability concepts between suppliers (marketing firms) and their clients could contribute to successfully meeting sustainability demands. From the point of view of the consumer, close supplier–retail relationships have solved food safety issues, but the implementation of sustainability in other supply chain activities and processes is a pending issue. We propose strategic approximation and collaboration to bridge the gap between the varying sustainability demands in the supplier–retail relationship within perishable supply chains. Although this article specifically addresses fresh vegetable supply chains, the results may be extrapolated to other agri-food chains with a similar structure

Sustainable operations of industrial symbiosis: an enterprise input-output model integrated by agent-based simulation

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a key for implementing circular economy. Through IS, wastes produced by one company are used as inputs by other companies. The operations of IS suffers from uncertainty barriers since wastes are not produced upon demand but emerge as secondary outputs. Such an uncertainty, triggered by waste supply-demand quantity mismatch, influences IS business dynamics. Accordingly, companies have difficulty to foresee potential costs and benefits of implementing IS. The paper adopts an enterprise input-output model providing a cost–benefit analysis of IS integrated to an agent-based model to simulate how companies share the total economic benefits stemming from IS. The proposed model allows to explore the space of cooperation, defined as the operationally favourable conditions to operate IS in an economically win-win manner. This approach, as a decision-support tool, allows the user to understand whether the IS relationship is created and how should the cost-sharing policy be. The proposed model is applied to a numerical example. Findings show that cost-sharing strategies are dramatically affected by waste supply-demand mismatch and by the relationship between saved and additional costs to run IS. Apart from methodological and theoretical contributions, the paper proposes managerial and practical implications for business strategy development in IS

Evaluation of Corporate Sustainability

As a consequence of an increasing demand in sustainable development for business organizations, the evaluation of corporate sustainability has become a topic intensively focused by academic researchers and business practitioners. Several techniques in the context of multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) have been suggested to facilitate the evaluation and the analysis of sustainability performance. However, due to the complexity of evaluation, such as a compilation of quantitative and qualitative measures, interrelationships among various sustainability criteria, the assessor’s hesitation in scoring, or incomplete information, simple techniques may not be able to generate reliable results which can reflect the overall sustainability performance of a company. This paper proposes a series of mathematical formulations based upon the evidential reasoning (ER) approach which can be used to aggregate results from qualitative judgments with quantitative measurements under various types of complex and uncertain situations. The evaluation of corporate sustainability through the ER model is demonstrated using actual data generated from three sugar manufacturing companies in Thailand. The proposed model facilitates managers in analysing the performance and identifying improvement plans and goals. It also simplifies decision making related to sustainable development initiatives. The model can be generalized to a wider area of performance assessment, as well as to any cases of multiple criteria analysis

Enhancing the cosmetics industry sustainability through a renewed sustainable supplier selection model

The cosmetics industry requires a long-term sustainable strategy to balance its continuously growing trend worldwide and its resources consumption. In this view, the suppliers' selection process is gaining more attention affecting products' overall sustainability. The objective of this contribution is hence to develop and validate the Cosmetics Sustainable Supplier Selection (C-SSS) model allowing the selection of sustainable suppliers for the cosmetic industry, evaluating them in an objective and balanced manner. The model was built relying on both scientific and grey literature, by incorporating the characteristics of existing SSS models usually used separately. The C-SSS enabled to integrate the EMM approach (to reduce the subjectivity), the ANP approach (to evaluate criteria interconnections), and the TOPSIS and ELECTRE models (to create a hybrid compensation model) to support managers in objectively selecting the most sustainable suppliers. The C-SSS model was applied and validated through an industrial use case in a cosmetics Italian company

Ranqueamento de sistemas de produtos baseado na avaliação da sustentabilidade do ciclo de vida: tomada de decisão estocástica baseada em múltiplos critérios

Purpose – Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) provides useful and comprehensive information on product system performance. However, it poses several challenges for decision-making process due to (i) multidimensional indicators, (ii) conflicting objectives and (iii) uncertainty associated with the performance assessment. This research proposes an approach able to account uncertain life cycle sustainability performances through multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) process to support decision-making.Design/methodology/approach – Our method is structured in three phases: i) assessing the uncertainty of LCSA performances, ii) propagating LCSA uncertainty into MCDA methods and iii) interpreting the stochastic results. The approach is applied on an illustrative case study, ranking four alternatives to biodiesel supply.Findings –The recommendation generated by this approach provides an information about the confidence the decision maker can have in a given result (ranking of solutions) under the form of a probability, providing a better knowledge of the risk (in this case due to the uncertainty of the preferred solution). As such, stochastic results, if appropriately interpreted, provide a measure of the robustness of the rankings generated by MCDA methods, overcoming the limitation of the overconfidence of deterministic rankings.Originality/value – The fundamental contributions of this paper are to (i) integrate LCSA uncertainty into decision-making processes through MCDA approach; (ii) provide a sensitivity analysis about the MCDA method choice, (iii) support decision-makers’ preference choices through a transparent elicitation process and (iv) provide a practical decision-making platform that accounts simultaneously uncertain LCSA performances with stakeholders’ value judgments.Propósito – A avaliação de sustentabilidade do ciclo de vida (LCSA) fornece informações úteis e abrangentes sobre o desempenho de um sistema de produtos. Entretanto, existem alguns desafios associado ao processo de tomada de decisão envolvendo esses resultados: (i) indicadores multidimensionais, (ii) objetivos conflitantes e (iii) incerteza associada à avaliação de desempenho. Esta pesquisa propõe uma abordagem que considera a incerteza do desempenho em termos de sustentabilidade do ciclo de vida através do processo de análise de decisão baseado em múltiplos critérios (MCDA) para apoiar a tomada de decisão.Metodologia – Nosso método está estruturado em três fases: i) avaliação da incerteza do desempenho obtido por meio da LCSA, ii) propagação da incerteza da LCSA nos métodos MCDA e iii) interpretação dos resultados estocásticos. A abordagem foi aplicada em um estudo de caso ilustrativo, classificando quatro alternativas de fornecimento de biodiesel.Resultados –  A recomendação gerada por esta abordagem fornece uma informação sobre a confiança que o tomador de decisão pode ter em um determinado resultado (classificação de soluções) sob a forma de uma probabilidade, proporcionando um melhor conhecimento do risco (neste caso devido à incerteza da solução preferida). Assim, os resultados estocásticos, se interpretados de forma adequada, fornecem uma medida da robustez dos rankings gerados pelos métodos MCDA, superando a limitação do excesso de confiança dos rankings determinísticos.Originalidade – As contribuições fundamentais deste artigo são (i) integrar a incerteza da LCSA nos processos de tomada de decisão por meio da abordagem MCDA; (ii) fornecer uma análise de sensibilidade sobre a escolha do método MCDA, (iii) apoiar as escolhas de preferência dos tomadores de decisão por meio de um processo de elicitação transparente e (iv) fornecer uma plataforma de tomada de decisão prática que contabiliza simultaneamente os desempenhos das performances LCSA incertas com julgamentos de valor das partes interessadas