A generic supplier management tool for outsourcing manufacturing

A corporation’s global supply chain usually consists of enterprises and manufacturers that are graphically dispersed around the world, whereby each company is involved in a wide variety of supply chain activities such as order fulfilment, international procurement, acquisition of information technology, manufacturing, and customer service. Therefore, continuously tracking performance of suppliers and an appropriate selection mechanism is one of the crucial activities in supply chain management. This paper presents an intelligent generic supplier management tool (GSMT) using the case‐based reasoning (CBR) technique for outsourcing to suppliers and automating the decision making process when selecting them. The development of GSMT and how the CBR technique is applied is then given, followed by an application of GSMT in Honeywell Consumer Products (Hong Kong) Limited.