Supplier selection: Single sourcing vs. Dual sourcing with sustainability considerations

This paper presents an integrated approach to supplier selection, which takes into account sustainability considerations and allows for the analysis of single sourcing vs. dual sourcing. A set of criteria and subcriteria are identified from the literature and used for the evaluation of the suppliers. In line with the purpose of taking into account sustainability considerations, social sustainability and environmental sustainability criteria are included in the analysis, together with service criteria which reflect the traditional criteria used to evaluate and rank suppliers. The model starts with the analysis of the single sourcing strategy, where a single vendor (supplier #1) is available for a given supply. On the basis of the selection criteria, as well as of a fuzzy logic controller model, a score is computed for supplier #1. Such a score can be compared with the performance of supplier #2, who is taken into account when the dual sourcing strategy is pondered. The proposed model is applied to the case of an Italian company, to show its usefulness in practical cases.