Prioritization of suppliers’ performance in the automotive industry based on agile factors with combined approach of factor analysis and multi-criteria decision making

The issue of selecting suppliers and prioritizing them is always one of the most important actions of various companies, including car manufacturer companies. Because these companies need a lot of parts to produce car, they have one of the most complex supply chains. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to prioritize the performance of automotive industry’s agile suppliers based on agile indicators with a combined approach of confirmatory factor analysis & TOPSIS method.

The present study is accounted of applied research type according to the purpose and of descriptive research type in terms of data collection. It is also in the category of quantitative research based on dealing with the problem. In this research, a model was desigsned to identify criteria and sub-criteria by reviewing the research literature and theoretical framework. First and second-order confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the model & TOPSIS was used to rank suppliers. The statistical society of the research in the first part, i.e. confirmatory factor analysis, is supply chain scope’s experts and specialists and in The ranking section also the opinions of 13 experts is used.

In the confirmatory factor analysis section, between seven criteria and seventeen sub-criteria, in the first order confirmatory factor analysis section, all sub-criteria were approved regarding the factor load and significant numbers. In the second-order factor analysis section also, regarding that standard estimation coefficients and significant numbers were in a suitable range, therefore, all the criteria (Use of technology, Strong supplier relationships, updated and improvement method, clearness, partners’ features capability, process capability, process capability, flexibility) were approved. It should be noted that in this section, the criterion of continuous updated and improvement method had the highest coefficient and the partners’ features capability had the lowest coefficient. Finally, also in the TOPSIS section,10 suppliers were prioritized according to the opinions of experts and specialists.