Supplier selection is one of the most critical activities of purchasing management in supply chain. Supplier selection is a complex problem involving qualitative and quantitative multi-criteria. A trade-off between these tangible and intangible factors is essential in selecting the best supplier. The work incorporates AHP in choosing the best suppliers. The results suggest that AHP process makes it possible to introduce the optimum order quantities among the selected suppliers so that the Total Value of Purchasing (TVP) becomes maximum. In this work, an AHP-based supplier selection model is formulated and then applied to a real case study for a steel manufacturing company in Malaysia. The use of the proposed model indicates that it can be applied to improve and assist decision making to resolve the supplier selection problem in choosing the optimal supplier combination. The work represents the systematic identification of the important criteria for supplier selection process. In addition, the results exhibit the application of development of a multi-criteria decision model for evaluation and selection of suppliers with proposed AHP model, which by scoring the performance of suppliers is able to reduce the time taken to select a vendor.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current level of best manufacturing practices in Malaysian ISO 9000 certified small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a survey on 270 ISO 9000 certified manufacturing SMEs. Based on an extensive search of literature on performance requirements, eight areas were identified. Thus, the questionnaire was designed consisting of the eight areas which are management, human resources development (HRD), technology and product innovation, marketing strategy, quality, production process, supply chain management (SCM) and customer focus. Data were analysed using the SPSS software. Findings: The results showed that among the eight areas, customer focus is the most implemented area with the highest mean of 4.16, followed by quality (3.92), management (3.78), SCM (3.56), HRD (3.27), marketing strategy (3.05), production process (3.02) and technology and product innovation with a score of 2.95. The results showed that the level of best manufacturing practices can be improved further, especially in the area of technology and product innovation.

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