Supplier Selection in a Coffee-Roasting Plant: an Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach

Abstract

Companies are looking for reliable partners, including suppliers, that offer high-quality services. The decision-making process involves several stakeholders with different objectives that require different types of relevant criteria to be considered. This study used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multiple-criteria decision analysis and decision-making method, to select a new supplier for a coffee-roasting plant. For this, the type of coffee was selected, and the relevant criteria were established: percentage of extrinsic defects, loss in precleaning, price, and taste. Four different potential suppliers were compared in relation to all criteria using the AHP. We achieved our research objective by establishing an order of priority for the criteria and suppliers. As a result, supplier B was the leading supplier with a 35.29% priority, followed by suppliers A and D. Our findings show great potential for using a formal method in the decision-making process in the agro-industry and applying the AHP method in an important problem and in relevant plant culture. Furthermore, other problems in agricultural engineering can benefit from the reasoning steps employed.