Abstract:  It is important for a manufacture to select appropriate suppliers and the supplier selection problem is a multi-objective optimization problem. A method called technique for order preference by similarity to idea solution (TOPSIS) is often used to solve this problem. However, by using TOPSIS, it is difficult to find the weights to obtain a good solution. In this paper, a system of evaluation indices for supplier selection is put forward. Then, a model called DEA/TOPSIS that combines TOPSIS with DEA is presented. By determining the entropy weight of each index, a combined entropy-DEA weight method is proposed. In this way, subjectivity can be avoided to some extent. The proposed method is applied to a ultra-white glass manufacturing enterprise for supplier selection and a satisfied result is obtained.

Key words: strategic supplier, entropy weight, DEA weight, DEA/TOPSIS model