A vendor recommendation model using neural networks

Abstract

Suppliers today are considered as a logical extension to a firm that provide critical inputs to its processes. Supplier performance evaluation is vital for any firm to carry out supplier selection and to practice effective supply chain management. Further, the supplier performance measurement system should continuously evolve in a company as a process for improving the capabilities, execution effectiveness and efficiency. Though the supplier performance systems have been well investigated in the literature, very few studies have proposed an order-based supplier selection approach that takes into account the changing priorities of the customer. The research tries to address this gap by attempting to establish a dynamic linkage between customer order priorities and supplier characteristics. A neural network model for the order driven vendor recommendation system that ranks the suppliers as per the requirements of the order has been proposed.