The Strategic Distributor Selection Based On The Fuzzy Multiattibute Decision-Making Model

The key point of supply chain management is the coordination and cooperation between the enterprises of the supply chain, meaning that the strategic partnership needs to be built among enterprises. However, The partnership not only refers to the relationships between the suppliers and the manufactures but also includes the relationships between the manufactures and the distributors. In this paper, the distributors are proposed to be the strategic partner of the manufactures and a systematic study is made on the evaluation of the distributor.Firstly, the current study of the distributor selection both at home and abroad is summarized and analyzed, then, the shortcomings of the current research and the research ideas of this paper is pointed out. Secondly, the relevant theory of supply chain management and some content of partnership is reviewed, which lays a theoretical foundation for the study of the distributor selection. The change of the position of the distributors in the supply chain is explained, the status of the distributors is determined and the distributor selection is re-defined. Thirdly, the index system of the distributor selection is rebuilt based on the summery of the criteria suggested by the scholars and the strategic thought of the strategy implementation tool-Balanced Scorecard. Fourthly, the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of choosing a right distributor are analyzed. The existing ways to build the index system of the distributor selection are improved and a fuzzy multi-attribute decision making model is built to solve the evaluation problems of the distributor selection. In this paper, fuzzy AHP, fuzzy entropy, and fuzzy TOPSIS are combined to establish the decision-making model. Next, the example of the application of the model is used to describe the process of the implementation of the evaluation system. Finally, conclusions are made and the content of the further research is pointed out.The innovation of this paper is the utilization of the BSC in the built of the index system. The fuzzy MADM is used in the evaluation of the distributors. Fuzzy AHP and fuzzy entropy is combined to determine the weight of the index and fuzzy TOPSIS is used to rank the candidates. The disadvantage of this paper is that the index system is general, however, index systems are different in different industry. The establish way of the distributor selection proposed can be used as a guide, and testing is needed to make sure if it is practical.