Group Multicriteria Decision Model for Supplier Categorization in a Construction Company Using Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets and ELECTRE TRI

Abstract

Abstract

Acquisition costs account for a significant share of total construction project costs, underscoring the importance of purchasing and supply management for organizational success. Supplier selection and evaluation are particularly critical because they involve multiple criteria, qualitative and quantitative attributes, and several decision-makers. In the construction industry, these activities become even more complex due to sector-specific characteristics such as convergent material flows, temporary facilities, buyer–supplier conflicts, price-oriented decisions, and the volatility of project-based markets. This paper investigates the supplier evaluation process in a construction company and identifies the company’s requirements and decision-makers’ expectations. Based on the collected data, this research proposes a model aligned with the company’s characteristics and the decision-makers’ expectations. The model combines two methods: the Intuitionistic Fuzzy approach to aggregate decision-makers’ opinions and ELECTRE TRI to classify suppliers based on predefined criteria and thresholds. The proposed model handles different weights assigned to each decision-maker for each criterion without allowing compensation among criteria. This model also explores the role of symmetry in multicriteria decision-making by combining Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets with the ELECTRE TRI method. Decision-makers validated the proposal and emphasized its simplicity and flexibility, which allow future adjustments to both the criteria weights and the decision-makers’ assigned weights.