Decision Support System for Evaluating Suppliers Based on Sustainable Practices

Due to the growing importance given to sustainability, there is a clear need for significant changes in supply chain management in various industries, since they represent a significant portion of any country's economy. Accordingly, companies have progressively invested in implementing sustainable practices at all stages of the production process, including purchasing, manufacturing, technology, research and development, logistics, and customer relations. To this end, it is crucial to select sustainable suppliers based on various criteria, such as economic, environmental, social, and reconfiguration, as well as sub-criteria such as delivery time, Eco-Management, and Audit Scheme certification (EMAS certification), the material or design used in the packaging and modularity. This study aims to analyse the methods and criteria that can be used to create a Decision Support System (DSS), which companies can then use to select and choose their suppliers in an optimised way and follow sustainable logistics practices. To this end, a simple and quick tool was developed that allows the user to enter data relating to the classification of pre-established criteria and sub-criteria on a supplier evaluation form so that they can be analysed and then compared with other companies on dashboards.