FAHP For Comprehensive Evaluation Of Supply Chain Flexibility

With the fast development of information science technology and with the globalization of economy nowadays, the uncertainty factors that most corporations face are increasing. Supply Chain Management has gradually become one of the study focuses in the current academia. In order to achieve the leader position in the intense market competition, corporations must successfully management their supply chain with the upstream and downstream partners, and they must be able to response quickly to the highly changeful environment of market, also they must satisfy consumers'various demands, and must increase in consumers'satisfaction. There are a lot of uncertainty factors in the environment around a corporation. These uncertainty factors may make the corporation unable to satisfy consumers'demands, bring bullwhip effect, cause to resources waste, and even make the supply chain broken and so on. To resolve these problems, as an effective way to solve the above problems in the process of supply chain management, supply chain flexibility is becoming more and more appreciated in practice.The thesis presents the practical significance of the research on supply chain flexibility and the necessity of evaluating the supply chain flexibility by introducing readers the background of supply chain management and the risks that corporations faced in the supply chain management. Also the thesis systematically differentiates and analyzes the flexibility of Supply Chain; properly measure indices for flexibility evaluation; build an index system of supply chain flexibility and introduce the flexibility evaluation model for Supply Chain Management System.The thesis can be divided into six parts. They are:(1)The Supply Chain and the Supply Chain Management. In this part of the thesis, the author firstly introduces the basic conception and development of the Supply Chain (SC) and the Supply Chain Management (SCM), and then introduces the risks that corporations faced in the complicated supply chain management. The paper introduces the conception of risk, and the way to identify risks. By researching on the risks theory, the thesis draws forth the theme that the supply chain should have flexibility in order to avoid risks.(2)Flexibility. In this part of the thesis, the author introduces the basic definition of flexibility, presents the characteristic of flexibility and the influence that flexibility brings to supply chain performance and to the whole corporation performance.(3)Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP). This thesis presents the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) to evaluate the flexibility of the supply chain. This part will chiefly introduce the meaning and the basic principle of the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process, and also the use of Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) into the field of various evaluations at present.(4) The evaluation index system of supply chain flexibility. In the chapter 4 of the thesis, the author introduces and studies about the principle of setting up an evaluation index system. At last an evaluation index system of supply chain flexibility which includes three levels of index is established by studying the past researcher's conclusions of the various methods in flexibility classification.(5) Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) for comprehensive evaluation of corporations'supply chain flexibility. Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) for comprehensive evaluation of corporations'supply chain flexibility is the major emphasis of this article. It includes the following details: first, how to gather the data of the index of supply chain flexibility, second, how to calculate the weight denoting the level of the importance of element, third, the principle of the evaluating model and the method of Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP), and last, the indication of the evaluating model of Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and how to use it to evaluate supply chain flexibility (including the way to evaluating and the step or process about how to use it).(6)Empirical study. At the last part of this article, the author introduces the empirical study in view of the successful experience of supply chain management in Wal-Mart Stores. And then the author uses some imitative data into the evaluating model. By doing so, the article reveals how to evaluate the supply chain flexibility more scientifically and properly. Besides making the thesis have more important theoretical significance, it also make the article have more important practical significance.The thesis adapts the following methods to research: combining of theoretical and empirical methods, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. By combining these methods, the author combined the analytic hierarchy process with fuzzy comprehensive evaluation methods, in order to establish the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process model for comprehensive evaluation of supply chain flexibility. Comprehensively exerting the Supply Chain theory,the Flexibility theory,the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process and relative theory and so on to do theoretical and empirical research about the establishing of the evaluation index system of supply chain flexibility and the principle and method of the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) for comprehensive evaluation of supply chain flexibility. And about the choice of research method, the author insists on the principle of evaluating scientifically and feasibly, combining the theoretical research and the empirical research.