Sustainable Supplier Selection in the Defense Industry with Multi-criteria Decision-Making Methods

In order for countries to have strong armies, they should attach importance to defense industry projects. Therefore, countries allocate high resources to defense industry investments in order to be a deterrent against their enemies. In recent years, the concept of sustainability has started to gain importance in the defense industry, as in many other sectors. Sustainability practices in the defense industry play an active role in the success of defense industry projects. One of the most important links of sustainability is sustainable supply chain management (SCM). Therefore, in this study, the problem of sustainable supplier selection (SSS) in the defense industry has been examined. Since multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods are widely used in supplier selection, MCDM methods were also used in this study. In the study, first of all, sustainable supplier selection criteria (SSSC) in the defense industry were determined by making use of expert opinions and studies in the literature. The weights of the determined criteria were determined using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. In the last part of the study, a comparison was made between different suppliers working in the defense industry by using the Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) method and the weights previously determined by the AHP method, and the best supplier was determined as a result of the calculations.