Towards a Learning Organization Perspective to Supplier Selection for Global Supply Chain Management: an Integrated Framework

Supplier selection procedures have focused on available and measurable data. In this paper the authors present a framework for supplier evaluation in a global environment where data are often unavailable, ambiguous, and difficult to measure. Global supply chains may involve very different relationships, from strategic/long term to tactical/short term relationships. Given the wide range of purchasing situations and the different types of supply relationships it does not seem practicable to identify a single and optimal solution to the problem of defining a suitable evaluation method. The proposed framework is intended to support supply chain managers both in the problem setting stage, in order to identify the most appropriate and effective evaluation method given information on the strategic characteristics of the supply relationship, on suppliers performance, and its localization (what do you mean here), and in problem solving stage, in order to support the assessment of suppliers in a systematic way.