Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 1136311368

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Expert Systems with Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

A multi-criteria intuitionistic fuzzy group decision making for supplier

selection with TOPSIS method
Fatih Emre Boran a,*, Serkan Gen a, Mustafa Kurt b, Diyar Akay b
a
b

Institute of Science and Technology, Department of Industrial Engineering, Gazi University, 06570 Ankara, Turkey
Department of Industrial Engineering, Gazi University, 06570 Ankara, Turkey

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Keywords:
Intuitionistic fuzzy set
Supplier selection
TOPSIS method
Group decision making

a b s t r a c t
Supplier selection, the process of nding the right suppliers who are able to provide the buyer with the
right quality products and/or services at the right price, at the right time and in the right quantities, is one
of the most critical activities for establishing an effective supply chain. On the other hand, it is a hard
problem since supplier selection is typically a multi criteria group decision-making problem involving
several conicting criteria on which decision makers knowledge is usually vague and imprecise. In this
study, TOPSIS method combined with intuitionistic fuzzy set is proposed to select appropriate supplier in
group decision making environment. Intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging (IFWA) operator is utilized
to aggregate individual opinions of decision makers for rating the importance of criteria and alternatives.
Finally, a numerical example for supplier selection is given to illustrate application of intuitionistic fuzzy
TOPSIS method.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Supply Chain Management (SCM) has received recently considerable attention in both academia and industry. The major aims of
SCM are to reduce supply chain (SC) risk, reduce production costs,
maximize revenue, improve customer service, optimize inventory
levels, business processes, and cycle times, and resulting in increased competitiveness, customer satisfaction and protability
(Chou & Chang, 2008; Ha & Krishnan, 2008; Heizer & Render,
2004; Monczka, Trent, & Handeld, 2001; Simchi-Levi, Kaminsky,
& Simchi-Levi, 2003; Stevenson, 2005).
One of the important activities for SC success is an effective purchasing function (Cakravastia & Takahashi, 2004; Chou & Chang,
2008; Giunipero & Brand, 1996; Porter & Millar, 1985). The purchasing function has received a great deal of attention in the
SCM due to factors such as globalization, increased value added
in supply and accelerated technological change. The purchasing
function involves buying the raw materials, supplies and components for the organization. The most important activity of the purchasing function is the selection of appropriate supplier, since it
brings signicant savings for the organization (Haq & Kannan,
2006).
One of the well known studies on supplier selection belongs to
Dickson (1966) who identied 23 important evaluation criteria for
supplier selection. Weber, Current, and Benton (1991) reviewed
and classied 74 articles addressed the supplier selection problem.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 312 213 32 33; fax: +90 312 212 00 59.
E-mail address: feboran@gazi.edu.tr (F.E. Boran).
0957-4174/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2009.03.039

de Boer, Labro, and Morlacchi (2001) identied four stages for supplier selection including denition of the problem, formulation of
criteria, qualication, and nal selection, respectively. They reviewed and classied MCDM approaches for supplier selection.
Several methodologies have been proposed for the supplier
selection problem. The systematic analysis for supplier selection
includes categorical method, weighted point method (Timmerman,
1986; Zenz, 1981), matrix approach (Gregory, 1986), vendor performance matrix approach (Soukup, 1987) vendor prole analysis
(VPA) (Thompson, 1990), analytic hierarchy process (AHP) (Barbarosoglu & Yazgac, 1997; Narasimhan, 1983; Nydick & Hill, 1992),
analytic network process (ANP) (Sarkis & Talluri, 2000), mathematical programming (Chaudhry, Forst, & Zydiak, 1993; Pan, 1989;
Rosenthal, Zydiak, & Chaudhry, 1995; Sadrian & Yoon, 1994; Weber & Current, 1993) and multiple objective programming (MOP)
(Buffa & Jackson, 1983; Feng, Wang, & Wang, 2001; Ghoudsypour
& OBrien, 1998; Sharma, Benton, & Srivastava, 1989; Weber & Ellram, 1992).
Most of these methods do not seem to address the complex and
unstructured nature and context of many present day purchasing
decisions (de Boer, Van der Wegen, & Telgen, 1998). In many existing decision models in the literature, only quantitative criteria
have been considered for supplier selection. Several inuence factors are often not taken into account in the decision-making process, such as incomplete information, additional qualitative
criteria and imprecision preferences (Chen, Lin, & Huang, 2006;
Zhang, Zhang, Lai, & Lu, 2009). Therefore, fuzzy set theory (FST)
has been applied to supplier selection recently. Li, Fun, and Hung
(1997) and Holt (1998) discussed the application of FST in supplier

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F.E. Boran et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 1136311368

0 6 lA x mA x 6 1

selection. Chen et al. (2006) extended the concept of TOPSIS method to develop a methodology for solving supplier selection problems in fuzzy environment. Haq and Kannan (2006) presented a
structured model for evaluating the supplier selection for the rubber industry using AHP and the model is veried with the fuzzy
AHP. Bayrak, elebi, and Taskin (2007) presented a fuzzy multi-criteria group decision-making approach to supplier selection based
on fuzzy arithmetic operation. Chou and Chang (2008) presented
strategy-aligned fuzzy simple multi-attribute rating technique
(SMART) approach for solving the supplier selection problem from
the perspective of strategic management of the SC. Chan, Kumar,
Tiwari, Lau, and Choy (2008) presented fuzzy AHP to efciently
tackle both quantitative and qualitative decision factors involved
in the selection of global supplier. nt, Kara, and Isk (2009)
developed a supplier evaluation approach based on ANP and TOPSIS methods for the supplier selection.
This paper proposes an intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria group
decision making with TOPSIS method for supplier selection problem. The importance of the criteria and the impact of alternatives
on criteria provided by decision makers are difcult to precisely
express by crisp data in the selection of supplier problem. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets introduced by Atanassov (1986) are suitable
way to deal with this challenge and applied many decision-making
problem under uncertain environment. In group decision-making
problems, aggregation of expert opinions is very important to
appropriately perform evaluation process. Therefore, IFWA operator is utilized to aggregate all individual decision makers opinions
for rating the importance of criteria and the alternatives. The TOPSIS method considering both positive-ideal and negative-ideal
solution is one of the popular methods in multi-attribute decision-making problem. Therefore, TOPSIS method combined with
intuitionistic fuzzy set has enormous chance of success for supplier
selection process.
Rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, brief
description of intuitionistic fuzzy sets is given. Section 3 presents
detailed description of intuitionsitic fuzzy TOPSIS method. In Section 4, a numerical example is demonstrated. Finally conclusion
of this paper is presented in Section 5.

A third parameter of IFS is pA(x), known as the intuitionistic fuzzy

index or hesitation degree of whether x belongs to A or not

pA 1  lA x  mA x
0 6 pA x 6 1

AB

lA1 x2 ; mA1 x2 ; pA1 x2



lA x  lB x; mA x mB x  mA x  mB xjx 2 X

Let A = {A1, A2, . . . , Am} be a set of alternatives and

X = {X1, X2, . . . , Xn} be a set of criteria, the procedure for Intuitionistic
Fuzzy TOPSIS method has been given as follows:
Step 1. Determine the weights of decision makers.
Assume that decision group contains l decision makers. The
importance of the decision makers are considered as linguistic
terms expressed in intuitionistic fuzzy numbers.
Let Dk = [lk, mk, pk] be an intuitionistic fuzzy number for rating of
kth decision maker. Then the weight of kth decision maker can be
obtained as:


kk P
l

lk pk

and

lk
lk mk

lk pk

k1

Pl

k1 kk



lk
lk mk



1.

Step 2. Construct aggregated intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix based on the opinions of decision makers.
k
Let Rk r ij mxn is an intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix of
each decision maker. k = {k1, k2, k3, . . . , kl} is the weight of each deciPl
sion maker and
k1 kk 1; kk 2 0; 1. In group decision-making
process, all the individual decision opinions need to be fused into
a group opinion to construct aggregated intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix. In order to do that, IFWA operator proposed by Xu
(2007d) is used. R = (rij)mxn, where
1

rij IFWAk r ij ; r ij ; . . . ; r ij
1

k1 r ij  k2 r ij  k3 r ij      kl r ij
"
#
l 
l 
l 
l 
k Y
k Y
k
k
Y
Y
k k
k k
k k
k k
1
1  lij
;
mij ;
1  lij

mij
k1

k1

k1

k1

6
Here r ij lAi xj ; mAi xj ; pAi xj i 1; 2 . . . ; m; j 1; 2; . . . ; n.
The aggregated intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix can be dened as follows:

where lA(x), vA(x): X ? [0, 1] are membership function and nonmembership function, respectively, such that

3. Intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS



A hx; lA x; mA xijx 2 X

If the pA(x) is small, knowledge about x is more certain. If pA(x) is

great, knowledge about x is more uncertain. Obviously, when
lA(x) = 1  mA(x) for all elements of the universe, the ordinary fuzzy
set concept is recovered (Shu, Cheng, & Chang, 2006).
Let A and B are IFSs of the set X, then multiplication operator is
dened as follows (Atanassov, 1986):

Intuitionistic fuzzy set introduced by Atanassov (1986) is an

extension of the classical FST, which is a suitable way to deal with
vagueness. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets have been applied many areas
such as; medical diagnosis (De, Biswas, & Roy, 2001; Szmidt &
Kacprzyk, 2001, 2004), decision-making problems (Atanassov, Pasi,
& Yager, 2005; Chen & Tan, 1994; Hong & Choi, 2000; Liu & Wang,
2007; Szmidt & Kacprzyk, 2002, 2003; Wang, 2009; Xu, 2007a,
2007b, 2007c; Xu & Yager, 2006, 2008) and pattern recognition
(Hung & Yang, 2004; Li & Cheng, 2002; Liang & Shi, 2003; Vlachos
& Sergiadis, 2007; Wang & Xin, 2005; Zhang & Fu, 2006).
Intuitionistic fuzzy set A in a nite set X can be written as:

lA1 x1 ; mA1 x1 ; pA1 x1

It is obviously seen that for every x 2 X:

2. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets

2

3

lA1 xn ; mA1 xn ; pA1 xn

6
 


7
7
6
6 l x1 ; mA x1 ; pA x1
lA2 x2 ; mA2 x2 ; pA2 x2    lA2 xn ; mA2 xn ; pA2 xn 7
7
6 A2
2
2
R6
7
7
6
.
.
.
.
7
6
..
..
..
..
5
4




lAm x1 ; mAm x1 ; pAm x1 lAm x2 ; mAm x2 ; pAm x2    lAm xn ; mAm xn ; pAm xn

11365

F.E. Boran et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 1136311368

. . . r 1m

r 11
6
6 r 21
6
6
R 6 r 31
6 .
6 .
4 .

r 12

r13

r 22

r23

r 32
..
.

r33
..
.

7
. . . r 2m 7
7
. . . r 3m 7
7
..
.. 7
7
.
. 5

r n1

r n2

r n3

. . . r nm

r011
6
6 r0
6 21
6
6 0
6r
R0 6 31
6
6 .
6 ..
6
4
r 0i1

Step 3. Determine the weights of criteria.

All criteria may not be assumed to be equal importance. W represents a set of grades of importance. In order to obtain W, all the
individual decision maker opinions for the importance of each criteria need to hbe fused.
i
k
k
k
k
be an intuitionistic fuzzy number asLet wj lj ; mj ; pj
signed to criterion Xj by the kth decision maker. Then the weights
of the criteria are calculated by using IFWA operator:
1

A

k1 wj  k2 wj  k3 wj      kl wj
"
#
l 
l 
l 
l 
k Y
kk Y
k
k
Y
Y
k k
k k
k k
1
1  lj
;
mk
;
1

l

m
j
j
j
k1

k1

k1

W w1 ; w2 ; w3 ; . . . ; wj

Here wj = (lj, mj, pj) (j = 1, 2, . . . , n).

Step 4. Construct aggregated weighted intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix.
After the weights of criteria (W) and the aggregated intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix are determined, the aggregated weighted
intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix is constructed according to the
following denition (Atanassov, 1986):

8
and

Then the aggregated weighted intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix

can be dened as follows:


l x1 ; mA1 W x1 ; pA1 W x1
6  A1 W

6
6 l x1 ; mA W x1 ; pA W x1
6 A2 W
2
2
0
R 6
6
..
6
.
4

lA1 W x2 ; mA1 W x2 ; pA1 W x2

r 032

r 033

..
.

..
.

r 0i2

r 0i3

7
. . . r 02j 7
7
7
0 7
. . . r 3j 7
7
7
..
.. 7
. . 7
7
5
. . . r 0ij

10

lA W xj

max

mA W xj

min

mAi W xj jj 2 J1 ; max mAi W xj jj 2 J2

lA W xj

min

lAi W xj jj 2 J1 ; max lAi W xj jj 2 J2

mA W xj

max

mAi W xj jj 2 J1 ; min mAi W xj jj 2 J2

lAi W xj jj 2 J1 ; min lAi W xj jj 2 J2


11


12


13


14

Step 6. Calculate the separation measures.

In order to measure separation between alternatives on intuitionistic fuzzy set, distance measures proposed by Atanassov
(1999), Szmidt and Kacprzyk (2000) and Grzegorzewski (2004),
including the generalizations of Hamming distance, Euclidean
distance and their normalized distance measures can be used.
After selecting the distance measure, the separation measures,
Si and Si , of each alternative from intuitionistic fuzzy posi-

n
o
R  W hx; lAi x  lW x; mAi x mW x  mAi x  mW xijx 2 X

2

r 023

where

k1

pAi W x 1  mAi x  mW x  lAi x  lW x mAi x  mW x

r 022

. . . r 01j

lA W xj ; mA W xj and A lA W xj ; mA W xj

7


r 013

r0ij l0ij ; m0ij ; p0ij lAi W xj ; mAi W xj ; pAi W xj is an element of the

aggregated weighted intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix.
Step 5. Obtain intuitionistic fuzzy positive-ideal solution and
intuitionistic fuzzy negative-ideal solution.
Let J1 and J2 be benet criteria and cost criteria, respectively. A*
is intuitionistic fuzzy positive-ideal solution and A is intuitionistic
fuzzy negative-ideal solution. Then A* and A are obtained as:

wj IFWAk wj ; wj ; . . . ; wj
1

r 012



lA1 W xn ; mA1 W xn ; pA1 W xn

3

7
7
lA2 W x2 ; mA2 W x2 ; pA2 W x2    lA2 W xn ; mA2 W xn ; pA2 W xn 7
7
7
7
..
..
..
7
.
.
.
5




lAm W x1 ; mAm W x1 ; pAm W x1 lAm W x2 ; mAm W x2 ; pAm W x2    lAm W xn ; mAm W xn ; pAm W xn


Table 1
The importance of decision makers and their weights.

Linguistic terms
Weight

DM1

DM2

DM3

Very important
0.406

Medium
0.238

Important
0.356

Table 2
Linguistic terms for rating the importance of criteria and the decision makers.
Linguistic terms

IFNsa

Very important
Important
Medium
Unimportant
Very unimportant

(0.90, 0.10)
(0.75, 0.20)
(0.50, 0.45)
(0.35, 0.60)
(0.10, 0.90)

IFN Intuitionistic fuzzy number.

Table 3
Linguistic terms for rating the alternatives.
Linguistic terms

IFNs

Extremely good (EG)/extremely high (EH)

Very very good (VVG)/very very high (VVH)
Very good (VG)/very high (VH)
Good (G)/high (H)
Medium good (MG)/medium high (MH)
Fair (F)/medium (M)
Medium bad (MB)/medium low (ML)
Bad (B)/low (L)
Very bad (VB)/very low (VL)
Very very bad (VVB)/very very low (VVL)

[1.00, 0.00]
[0.90, 0.10]
[0.80, 0.10]
[0.70, 0.20]
[0.60, 0.30]
[0.50, 0.40]
[0.40, 0.50]
[0.25, 0.60]
[0.10, 0.75]
[0.10, 0.90]

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F.E. Boran et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 1136311368

tive-ideal and negative-ideal solutions are calculated. In this paper, we use normalized Euclidean distance (Szmidt & Kacprzyk,
2000)

The linguistic terms shown in Table 3 are used to rate each

alternative supplier with respect to each criterion by three decision
makers.

v
u X


2 
u1 n 



S t
lAi W xj  lA W xj mAi W xj  mA W xj 2 pAi W xj  pA W xj 2
2n j1

15

v
u X


2 
u1 n 



S t
lAi W xj  lA W xj mAi W xj  mA W xj 2 pAi W xj  pA W xj 2
2n j1

16

Step 7. Calculate the relative closeness coefcient to the intuitionistic ideal solution.
The relative closeness coefcient of an alternative Ai with respect to the intuitionistic fuzzy positive-ideal solution A* is dened
as follows:

C i

Si 
S i  Si 

where 0 6 C i 6 1

Table 4
The ratings of the alternatives.
Criteria

X1:
X2:
X3:
X4:

Product quality.
Relationship closeness.
Delivery performance.
Price.

Procedure for the selection of supplier contains the following

steps:
Step 1. Determine the weights of the decision makers.
Importance degree of the decision makers on group decision was shown in Table 1. Linguistic terms used for the
ratings of the decision makers and criteria are given in
Table 2.
In order to obtain the weights of the decision makers, Eq. (5)
were utilized:

0:9

 
 0:406
0:50
0:50 0:05 0:95
0:9 0:75 0:05 0:75
0:95


0:50
0:50 0:05 0:95



 0:238

0:9 0:50 0:05 0:50

0:75 0:05 0:75
0:95
0:95


0:75 0:05 0:75
0:95

 
 0:356

0:9 0:50 0:05 0:50

0:75 0:05 0:75
0:95
0:95

kDM1

kDM2

kDM3

Step 2. Construct the aggregated intuitionistic fuzzy decision

matrix based on the opinions of decision makers.

DM1

DM2

DM3

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5

G
MG
VVG
MG
F

VG
G
VG
G
MG

G
F
VG
G
MG

X2

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5

MG
F
VG
F
MB

G
MG
G
F
F

MG
G
VG
MG
F

X3

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5

VG
G
VG
VG
G

G
MG
VG
G
G

VG
MG
G
G
MG

X4

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5

H
MH
VH
H
M

H
M
VH
MH
MH

H
MH
H
MH
M

4. Numerical example
An automotive company is desired to select the most appropriate supplier for one of the key elements in its manufacturing
process. After pre-evaluation, ve suppliers have remained as
alternatives for further evaluation. In order to evaluate alternative
suppliers, a committee composed of three decision makers has
been formed. Four criteria are considered as:

Decision makers

X1

17

Step 8. Rank the alternatives.

After the relative closeness coefcient of each alternative is
determined, alternatives are ranked according to descending order
of C i s.

Suppliers

Table 5
The importance weight of the criteria.
Criteria

DM1

DM2

DM3

X1
X2
X3
X4

VI
I
I
M

VI
I
I
I

I
I
M
M

Table 6
Separation measures and the relative closeness coefcient of each alternative.
Alternatives

S*

S

C i

Alt1
Alt2
Alt3
Alt4
Alt5

0.092
0.131
0.074
0.124
0.174

0.110
0.082
0.175
0.075
0.074

0.546
0.385
0.702
0.375
0.300

The ratings given by the decision makers to ve alternatives

were shown in Table 4.
The aggregated intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix based on
aggregation of decision makers opinions was constructed as
follows:

F.E. Boran et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 1136311368

Step 3. Determine the weights of the criteria.

The importance of the criteria represented as linguistic terms
were shown in Table 5.
Opinions of decision makers on criteria were aggregated using
Eq. (7) to determine the weight of each criterion.

W fX 1 ;X2 ;X3 ;X 4 g

3
0:861; 0:128; 0:011 T
6 0:750; 0:200; 0:050 7
6
7
6
7
4 0:680; 0:267; 0:053 5
0:576; 0:371; 0:053

Step 4. Construct the aggregated weighted intuitionistic fuzzy

decision matrix.
After the weights of the criteria and the rating of the alternatives
had been determined, the aggregated weighted intuitionistic fuzzy
decision matrix was constructed by utilizing Eq. (8) as follows:

11367

5. Conclusions
This study presents a multi-criteria group decision making for
evaluation of supplier using intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets are suitable way to deal with uncertainty. In the
evaluation process, the ratings of each alternative with respect to
each criterion and the weights of each criterion were given as
linguistic terms characterized by intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. Also
intuitionistic fuzzy averaging operator was utilized to aggregate
opinions of decision makers. After intuitionistic fuzzy positive-ideal
solution and intuitionistic fuzzy negative-ideal solution were calculated based on the euclidean distance, the relative closeness coefcients of alternatives were obtained and alternatives were ranked.
TOPSIS method combined with intuitionistic fuzzy set has
enormous chance of success for multi-criteria decision-making
problems due to containing vague perception of decision makers

Step 5. Obtain intuitionistic fuzzy positive-ideal solution and

intuitionistic fuzzy negative-ideal solution.
Product quality, relationship closeness and delivery performance are benet criteria J1 = {X1, X2, X3} and price is cost criteria
J2 = {X4}. Then intuitionistic fuzzy positive-ideal solution and intuitionistic fuzzy negative-ideal solution were obtained as follows:

opinions. Therefore, in future, intuitionistic fuzzy set can be used

for dealing with uncertainty in multi-criteria decision-making
problems such as project selection, manufacturing systems, personnel selection, and many other areas of management decision
problems.

A f0:731; 0:215; 0:054; 0:585; 0:294; 0:121;

References

0:530; 0:353; 0:117; 0:303; 0:606; 0:091g

A f0:484; 0:422; 0:094; 0:347; 0:550; 0:103;
0:438; 0:453; 0:109; 0:443; 0:452; 0:105g

Step 6. Calculate the separation measures.

Negative and positive separation measures based on normalized Euclidean distance for each alternative were calculated in
Table 6.
Step 7. Rank the alternatives.
The relative closeness coefcients were determined, and then
ve alternatives were ranked according to descending order of
C i s. The alternatives were ranked as Alt3 > Alt1 > Alt2 > Alt4 > Alt5.
Alt3 was selected as appropriate supplier among the
alternatives.

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