A case study of supplier selection for lean supply by using a mathematical model

The role of purchasing departments has changed significantly in today's competitive environment. In order to keep the promises to customers; an effective material procurement system becomes necessary beside the improved manufacturing methods and technology. It becomes a necessity to work with the suppliers to provide quality and just in time delivery by supplying raw materials, parts and products. A purchasing department can take on both the active and effective role by applying the lean supply principles as much as possible. Single sourcing provides to easy control of procurement for achieving the lean supply objectives. In this paper, the supplier selection and evaluation for a manufacturing company is studied under lean philosophy. In order to reduce the supplier base, the supplier selection and evaluation study is conducted by multi‐attribute selection model (MSM) in five basic steps. Consequently, the selected two suppliers are proposed to top management.