Designing and regulating supplier development systems using ANFIS and meta-heuristic algorithms in the automotive industry

This paper aims to design and regulate the Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference Systems (ANFIS) of supplier development, determine the importance of different categories of supplier development (SD), and suggest appropriate activities based on the results for the development of suppliers in the automotive industry.

To design ANFIS, Grid Partitioning, Subtractive Clustering, and FCM have been used. Then, they have been regulated using Back Propagation (BP), Hybrid, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Differential Evolution (DE), Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) methods. A five-step procedure has been used for sensitivity analysis of the supplier development categories. By comparing the results of the regulated systems, the most appropriate ones were selected. Also, based on the supplier development score in different categories separately, the supplier development score was predicted for 53 strategic suppliers in the automotive industry. By sensitivity analysis, SD-related categories were prioritized to guide automotive industry manufacturers to use SD-related activities.

Findings indicated that the FCM compared to the other two methods; meta-heuristic regulation methods compared to BP and Hybrid, and ACO, DE, and GA compared to PSO led to better results. The ACO in all systems, the DE in four systems, and the GA in two categories were identified as the dominant methods, while the PSO was not dominant in any of the categories. This finding implies the priority of meta-heuristic algorithms as ACO> DE> GA> PSO, based on the data of this study. The results of the correlation between the scores of the ANFIS and the average scores of the experts show that the designed ANFIS has high accuracy.Practical implications: The results of this study will direct manufacturers' investments and direct involvement in SD. The findings encourage manufacturers and suppliers of the Iranian automotive industry first to activities related to the development of environmental capabilities and then activities related to the development of three other categories. The managers of Iran's automotive industry are suggested to apply the activities related to the development of suppliers' environmental capabilities. These activities include evaluating the supplier's environmental performance and feedback, sharing environmental information, ethics and social responsibility, obtaining environmental and social certifications, developing programs to improve the quality of life of target communities, green procurement, and environmental awareness, logistics activities Inversion, and joint efforts to improve performance are sustainable.

This study was one of the first in-house studies to compare the results of meta-heuristic algorithms compatible with ANFIS in the field of SD. In addition, in terms of implementation, it offered suitable SD activities to car manufacturers.