Criteria identification and ranking of sustainable suppliers in the supply chain of Isfahan Steel Company using thematic analysis and MARCOS method

Due to increasing environmental regulations and restrictions, and increasing social awareness, in order to meet sustainable development goals, government oversight of environmental and social issues in organizations has become stricter. Therefore the aim of this study is criteria identification and sustainable iron ore supplier ranking of Isfahan Steel Company using a new multi-criteria decision-making method, named MARCOS. This research is applicative which performed by qualitative- quantitative method. The statistical population of this study was the raw material purchasing experts, which ten experts were selected by purposive sampling. In the qualitative part, the criteria were identified by thematic analysis. Then, AHP method has been used to calculate the weight of criteria and finally, using MARCOS method, ranking and evaluation of seven major suppliers of iron ore with emphasis on sustainability principles has been done by MATLAB 2019a software. Based on the results, fifteen criteria have been identified in three sectors: economic, social and environmental, which after calculating the weight of the criteria, quality, delivery, and social responsibility, and reliability, adherence to laws, pollution control and distance were more important. It should be noted that the criteria identified in this study were in good agreement with available literatures. Also, the results obtained from MARCOS method were consistent with the results of TOPSIS, COPRAS, VIKOR and SAW methods.