741

A decision support system for supplier

selection in the airline industry
F T S Chan1*, H K Chan1, R W L Ip2, and H C W Lau3
1
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam,
People’s Republic of China
2
Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong,
People’s Republic of China
3
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom,
People’s Republic of China
The manuscript was received on 28 April 2006 and was accepted after revision for publication on 27 November 2006.

DOI: 10.1243/09544054JEM629

Abstract: Supplier selection has increasingly been regarded as one of the most important
strategies in the globalization era. While many companies require different resources from
the supply market, airline companies require supplies of parts and repair and maintenance
services. The suppliers of these products and services are regarded as critical for the industry.
With the multidimensional nature of the problem, supplier selection involves both tangible
and intangible selection criteria. This paper presents a case study on solving the supplier
selection problem in the airline industry through a decision support system that employs
the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The system was implemented with the aid of the
commercial software package Expert Choice. The significance of the study is to provide a
new platform for airline companies in selecting suppliers on the basis of the proposed
decision support system, which was tested with a Hong Kong-based airline company during
the course of development. In addition, the model highlights the areas of most concern to
airline companies in supplier selection. Unlike many similar studies, sensitivity analysis has
been performed in order to improve the robustness of the results, and to understand the
importance of different criteria with respect to the selected decision.

Keywords: decision support system, airline industry, case study, supplier selection, analytical
hierarchy process

1 INTRODUCTION In addition, the expansion of tourism, apart from

The airline industry is a distinctive business. Over
the last few decades, international air transport has
played a key role in the development of the world
economy by stimulating exchanges between coun-
tries and facilitating international economic acti-
vities. It has allowed a number of industries to
expand their geographical markets and to introduce
innovative just-in-time techniques. The globaliza-
tion of production and sales structures has contri-
buted to an improved use of resources worldwide.
*Corresponding author: Industrial and Manufacturing Systems
Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Room 814, Haking
Wong Building, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, People’s Republic
of China. email: ftschan@hkucc.hku.hk
widening cultural opportunities for millions of peo-
ple, has also led to greater economic prosperity in
many previously underdeveloped countries. Because
of all sorts of economic benefits and national secur-
ity considerations, the industry has long been
treated by national governments as a proprietary
industry and received strict government control [1].
However, governments around the world are redu-
cing their regulatory roles in the airline industry [2].
Deregulation and privatization have increased the
competition within the industry, with the appear-
ance of new airlines that have adopted low cost/low
price as their marketing strategy [3], combined with
rapid expansion into new markets by many of the
established new airlines [4]. This also partly explains
why a number of alliances have been formed [5].

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742 F T S Chan, H K Chan, R W L Ip, and H C W Lau
Nevertheless, severe intra- and interalliance compe-
tition still exists.
As consumers are quite accustomed to looking for
low fare opportunities, and because the air transport
product is rather difficult to differentiate [6], airline
companies have been exploiting internet techno-
logies at the customer interface for promotion and
sales of travel services. In spite of this, it is still quite
unlikely that airlines would be able to gain suffi-
cient improvement on the revenue side only. As a
consequence, more attention should be paid to the
control or reduction of operational costs [7], for
example, by selecting the best suppliers (which
may not necessarily be those offering the cheapest
products).
Many companies have realized the importance of
their suppliers to the success of their long-term
growth. Hence, they have been striving to develop
and maintain an optimum supplier structure that
could be beneficial to both sides. The first step in
achieving this is supplier-based management,
which includes supplier evaluation, with subsequent
selection of the best subset and reduction in the size
of the base [8]. In other words, supplier evaluation
and selection are prerequisites for the success of
any supplier strategy. Given the importance of sup-
pliers and the selection of suppliers in a rather gen-
eral perspective, suppliers to the airline companies
were defined as component or spare parts sup-
pliers and technical repairers or maintenance service
providers in the context of the present study.
The objective of this study is to design a decision
support system (DSS) based on the analytical hier-
archy process (AHP) to solve the supplier selection
problem in the airline industry, with the assist-
ance of the commercial software Expert Choice [9]
to achieve this purpose. AHP has been employed
in many applications in DSSs to help management
make decisions [10]. The organization of this paper
is as follows. Section 2 reviews related literature.
Section 3 gives a brief introduction of the methodo-
logy of this study. Section 4 presents the DSS, while
section 5 is a complementary section to section 4,
discussing related issues by conducting a sensitivity
analysis. Sensitivity analysis is important in the
sense that it provides an understanding of the
importance of the criteria, and hence could improve
the robustness of the results. However, it is usually
overlooked in the literature. Finally, section 6 con-
cludes the paper.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
The level of safety of an aircraft is initially set by the
airworthiness standards to which it is designed and
built. However, during their operating life, parts start
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to wear out, and failures could possibly occur.
Maintenance is then performed to ensure that an
acceptable level of safety is achieved throughout
the life of the aircraft and its constituent parts
and components. Manufacturing, maintenance, and
repair errors can negate design safety features and
introduce hazards that may not be immediately
apparent [11]. Hence, people who are responsible
for these functions play a vital role in company sur-
vival since any notable incident would deteriorate
the customer impression of air safety. Substantial
expenses have been incurred in maintenance, mate-
rials, and overhaul by some world-class airlines.
Maintenance deficiencies have been estimated to
be involved in approximately 12 per cent of major
aircraft accidents and 50 per cent of engine-related
flight delays and cancellations [12]. This highlights
the importance of suppliers in the airline industry.
A number of reports in the literature have pointed
out that one important aspect of supply chain man-
agement is the selection of suppliers [13–15]. In the
past, many firms have tended to use quantitative
factors, such as delivery timeliness, cost, etc., in the
selection of suppliers. Recently, research has shown
that more companies have adopted channel rela-
tionships (i.e. buyer–supplier relationships) in their
supplier evaluation programmes, or in forming part-
nerships with suppliers [16]. Wagner [8] advocated
that the value being generated by a company does
not come solely from within the company or from
the company’s purchasing or related functions. It
is, to a certain extent, defined by the supply market.
Therefore, suppliers can significantly contribute to
the company’s value. This also highlights the neces-
sity and importance of having and maintaining a
good supplier-based management system.
However, relational factors, such as the feeling of
trust, the level and openness of communication,
etc., are likely to be difficult to quantify. Regarding
these aspects, Barbarosoglu and Yazgac [15] noted
that evaluation of intangible factors requires expert
judgements. Usually, the more a person knows
about the situation, the better and more reliable
result can be expected from that person. Therefore,
supplier selection is certainly a multidimensional
problem involving both tangible and intangible fac-
tors, making it more complex to solve [17–19]. In
this connection, in order to integrate both tangible
and intangible factors into a logical and effective fra-
mework, a DSS based on AHP is proposed in this
study. The system provides a framework to cope
with a multicriteria situation, involving intuitive,
rational, qualitative, and quantitative aspects, to
solve the supplier selection problem.
In fact, a number of authors conducted research
into quantifying some intangible factors so that
a quantitative approach could be employed for
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 A decision support system for supplier selection in the airline industry
decision-making as early as in the 1980s [20].
Recently, Degraeve et al. [21] developed a mathe-
matical programming model by using total cost of
ownership for airline selection of a case company.
The theory behind this is to quantify all the factors
associated with the purchasing process in cost
items. As a matter of fact, not all intangible factors
could be quantified. That is why AHP is still appli-
cable in some situations and is employed in this
case study in order to take such unquantifiable
factors into consideration. In fact, ‘quantifying
approaches’ are useful in quantifying some factors
for pairwise comparison (to be discussed later) in
the proposed AHP model so that subjectivity of the
model could be further reduced as much as pos-
sible. Nevertheless, it is not our intention to review
such methodologies in this paper. However, inter-
ested readers should refer to a relevant review
conducted by De Boer et al. [22] for further
reference.
AHP, which was developed by Saaty [23], is a
decision-making process to help people in setting
priorities and making the best decisions when
both quantitative and qualitative aspects need to be
considered. It allows decision-makers to model a
complex problem in a hierarchical structure, which
shows the relationship of the goal of the problem,
assessment areas, objectives (criteria), subobjectives
(subcriteria), and alternatives, like that presented in
Fig. 1. That is, it allows the complex problem to be
broken down into smaller parts at different levels.
Uncertainties and other influencing factors can
also be included. Rebstock and Kaula [24] described
the established hierarchy as a flexible and dynamic
model that can be modified if new information or
insight is acquired. Decision-makers then make
simple pairwise judgements, typically with redun-
dancy throughout the hierarchy, to arrive at overall
priorities for the alternatives. AHP works by first
structuring the problem into a form of hierarchy
with several levels. Then all the elements in a level
are pairwisely compared with respect to the ele-
ments at the level above. This process leads to higher
consistency since pairwise comparison requires the
decision-maker to think precisely before giving the
answer [25].
AHP is based on three basic principles: decom-
position, comparative judgements, and hierarchical
composition or synthesis of priorities [26]. The
decomposition principle, which was mentioned pre-
viously, is applied to structure a complex problem
into a hierarchy of clusters (levels), subclusters, sub-
subclusters, and so on. The principle of comparative
judgements is applied to construct pairwise com-
parisons of all combinations of the elements in a
cluster with respect to the parent of that cluster.
Redundancy normally ensues during the pairwise
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743
comparison process since one element in a cluster
could be compared with other elements in the
same cluster more than once. These pairwise com-
parisons are used to derive ‘local’ priorities of the
elements in a cluster with respect to their parent.
The principle of hierarchical composition or synth-
esis is applied to multiply the local priorities of ele-
ments in a cluster by the ‘global’ priority of the
parent, producing global priorities throughout the
hierarchy and then adding the global priorities for
the lowest-level elements (the alternatives).
As a matter of fact, AHP has been widely applied
by a number of researchers and practitioners to
solve multicriterion problems, albeit in diverse
areas [27–33]. For instance, Hafeez et al. [31] used
AHP to determine key capabilities of a firm,
whereas Cheng and Li [25] employed AHP to allo-
cate resources by prioritizing construction infor-
mation and to determine the key information. In
particular, in the field of supplier or vendor selec-
tion, AHP has also been suggested and applied by
a number of researchers [34, 35]. They suggested
that AHP be applied in this field mainly because of
its inherent capability to take both qualitative and
quantitative criteria into consideration in vendor
selection problems.
Some researchers have formulated and used a
criterion framework to evaluate suppliers and sub-
sequently select the best alternative [15, 18, 34,
36]. On the other hand, others have performed
surveys with intended targets, and then developed
evaluation criteria or supplier management tools
that are currently used by the target groups of
companies [13, 16, 37], rather than using a supplier
selection model. There is some discussion regard-
ing the criteria determining the process, and the
number of criteria involved in the AHP. In a study
on the supplier selection process using the analytic
network process (ANP), a generalized form of AHP,
Sarkis and Talluri [18] concluded that the choice
and the number of factors to be included in the
supplier selection process must be cautiously
determined, and a large number of factors (40 in
that study) and relationships in the model could
make decision-makers feel exhausted. Moreover,
they pointed out that reducing the dimensionality
of the problem to an acceptable minimum level
will speed up the decision-making process and
make the process less complex. In addition, in
another study that applied AHP to solve vendor
selection problems in telecommunications sys-
tems, Tam and Rao Tummala [34] noted that the
presence of too many criteria makes the pairwise
comparison in evaluating vendors a difficult and
time-consuming process, which may also lead to
evaluator assessment bias. In their study, Tam and
Rao Tummala [34] used 33 criteria. Min [36] also
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744 F T S Chan, H K Chan, R W L Ip, and H C W Lau

Fig. 1 Proposed analytical hierarchy process model

suggested a framework for selecting the best 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

supplier internationally in response to globalization
of the world economy. The framework consisted
of even fewer criteria, 26 only. Nevertheless, these
frameworks, together with other literature, have pro-
vided the present authors with abundant insights
into various areas, particularly into the theory and
application of AHP, the nature of supplier selection,
and the criteria determining the process.
As literature concerning supplier selection in the
airline industry seems virtually non-existent, a large
number of sources have been reviewed in order
to obtain the characteristics of the airline/aviation
industry and to design the AHP-based model. At
the same time, a Hong Kong-based airline com-
pany was invited to participate in this development.

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 A decision support system for supplier selection in the airline industry
Data and information were collected from various
sources, including international journals, reference
books, websites, airline company annual reports, mat-
erials from aviation-related organizations/authorities,
and so on. A reference number was assigned to each
material once it had been collected and examined.
Analysis was then carried out to form the analytical
hierarchical model.
An information database was established for the
purpose of facilitating the analysis process. After
reviewing each material, the possible criteria to be
applied to the airline industry were accommodated
in the information database. The information data-
base accommodated various types of information
about each journal, including assigned journal num-
ber, topic of the paper, name of journal, publishing
year, criteria being used or possible criteria, and other
important points and their implications. In addition,
the current supplier management framework being
used by the case study company was also included
in the database.
After setting up the database, with the data pre-
filtered at the examination or reviewing stage, com-
parisons were initially carried out across the journal
database. This process generated a large number
of criteria. Then, the set of criteria was compared
against the supplier management framework of
the case study company, together with other mate-
rials, such as publications from the Air Transport
Association. With the consideration of the airline
industry characteristics and its needs, further filtra-
tion and selection of the criteria were performed,
leading to the formation of a criterion hierarchy in
this study. At the same time, a number of questions
were raised during the analysis process. In response
to this, these questions were sent to the procurement
department of the case study company. In addition,
the feedback was used for adjusting the final set of
criteria. Figure 1 presents the proposed AHP-based
model.
The next phase was data input and evaluation –
the criterion hierarchy was input to the commercial
software Expert Choice [9]. This is a computerized
DSS for analysis, synthesis, and justification of com-
plex decisions and evaluations. In fact, it has been
used by different organizations and governments
for a wide variety of applications, including alloca-
ting resources, value pricing, selecting alternative,
cost–benefit analysis, supplier evaluation, credit
analysis, etc. As of 1995, Expert Choice was being
used in 57 countries throughout the world, and there
were over 1000 journal and other citations about
AHP [38]. Pairwise comparisons and/or direct data
input were then made for every element at every
level against other elements at that level. All judge-
ments were then synthesized, with the alternatives
(i.e. supplier candidates) prioritized from best to
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745
worst. Result analysis was performed with the func-
tion provided by the software. Sensitivity analyses
were also performed to investigate the sensitivity of
the alternatives (i.e. supplier candidates) with
respect to the changes in the priorities of the criteria.
Expert Choice takes the presumption out of
decision-making based on AHP. It provides a syste-
matic approach to organizing problems, resulting
in informed logical decisions. It enables a decision-
maker graphically to portray the relationship between
many facets of a complex problem, and to incorpo-
rate both quantitative and qualitative information,
including experience and intuition. A hierarchy is a
representation of a complex problem in a multilevel
structure whose first level is the goal followed succes-
sively by levels of factors, criteria, subcriteria, and
so on, down to a bottom level of alternatives. In the
next two sections, the proposed decision support
system is presented and discussed.
4 PROPOSED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM
FOR SUPPLIER SELECTION
4.1 AHP model
The model goal, which was placed at the top level,
was to select the best supplier for the airline industry
(see Fig. 1). The second level was composed of three
main assessment aspects or areas: performance
assessment, continuous improvement and innova-
tion, and company background/business structure.
In each area, a number of criteria were identified,
as discussed in section 3. Performance assessment
includes four criteria: cost, satisfaction of supplier
service, quality, and assurance of supply. Under
continuous improvement and innovation, a further
four criteria are included in the model: proactive in
measuring supply chain/own suppliers, e-business
initiatives, continuous improvement programme/
TQM/six-sigma programme, etc., and research and
development (R&D). Under company background/
business structure, six criteria are considered:
organizational culture and strategic issues, compati-
bility (buyer and supplier partnership), perceived
risk, financial issues, technological issues, and
safety, environmental, and education issues. A total
of 36 subcriteria were identified. Explanation and
justification of each criterion and subcriterion are
listed in Table 1.
For the sake of simplicity, it is assumed that there
are only five potential suppliers in this study, abbre-
viated as supp1, supp2, supp3, supp4, and supp 5
in subsequent discussion. They are competing to
be the best supplier in the assessment of the case
study company. They are real suppliers that
were drawn from the existing supplier base of the
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Table 1 Explanations and justifications of the criteria and subcriteria in the proposed AHP model

Criteria and subcriteria Explanations and justifications

A Cost Cost has been considered and employed as one of the criteria in supplier selection in
many studies. Seristo [7] performed a survey of 28 executives from 17 European airlines
and found that high operating costs ranks as one of the critical problem areas in the
respondents’ airlines
A1 Price stability With the extensive use of the internet nowadays, passengers can easily collect information on
different aspects of airfreights, such as fares and services, from different airlines. Therefore,
keeping a stable pricing strategy is important and attractive to customers [4, 39]. Condom [1]
shared a similar view from a more fundamental perspective that people choose to fly only if
safe, reliable, and convenient air services are offered at a reasonable price. This view also
highlights the fact that people have a high concern on price
A2 Contractual obligation Contractual obligation refers to the level of fulfilment with respect to all contract terms and
conditions that are established and agreed legally between an airline and its suppliers.
Minor adjustment depends upon the agreement of the two parties, subject to certain
special conditions. Obligation fulfilment also reflects the degree of respect to the contract
A3 Cost reduction initiatives As the growth of the airline industry depends on global economic growth, and because of
deregulation and privatization, severe competition has been created in the marketplace. If
suppliers could be proactive, or have a positive attitude, in initiating cost reduction activities,
they should gain the rewards in order to overcome and adapt to this environment.
Barbarosoglu and Yazgac [15] defined cost reduction activities as the actual cost reduction
achieved by the firm as a result of corrective actions and technological investments, and it is
reflected in its pricing policies. Such a definition may act as a reference for the airline industry
as well
B Satisfaction of supplier Nowadays, supplier services have become important for manufacturing companies. More
service and more of these companies have been offering an integrated package of products and
services to their customers. Aviation suppliers are expected to provide high-quality
products as well as good supporting services as a ‘total solution’ to airlines. By offering a
higher level of service together with products of higher quality than that of the
competitors, a supplier has competitive advantage over other suppliers
B1 Support level Not surprisingly, many airlines desire their suppliers to provide products with high quality as
well as aftersales services. Those suppliers that could perform better than their competitors
in terms of aftersales services are more attractive to the airlines. This criterion refers to the
degree of focus to airlines’ needs, quick and concrete response to inquiry, and the
performance of other customer service issues
B2 Proactive giving out status Suppliers play a vital role in terms of providing highly reliable and quality goods as well as
update or performance maintenance and repair services. In conjunction with that, giving status updates is also an
important service. The status update includes any major changes in organization levels,
technical levels, and product levels, in particular the latter two. For instance, the daily
maintenance or checking procedures, or proper operating specifications, may be revised by
component suppliers. It is therefore important for them to give updated information to their
customers. Giving a status update is a means to ensure that all publications, such as
operating manuals, that are kept in the airline companies are current and applicable to the
components purchased
B3 Level of cooperation and Simpson et al. [16] pointed out that communication is an important factor for maintenance
communication of a channel relationship. They stated that ‘once suppliers have a good understanding of
customer needs, they can improve their performance on specific dimensions’. Therefore, a
good supplier should adopt a proper attitude in communicating with its customers
B4 Confidentiality As the cost of changing a partner in a supply chain could be large, the purchasing firm could
become confined by its suppliers [37]. Since a supplier of an airline does not solely serve that
airline, and the supplier base of the airline industry is not large, changing a supplier in the
airline industry is even more costly. Therefore, security of a company’s confidential
information becomes a critical consideration in running a business, especially in the
e-business era via internet technologies. Therefore, good suppliers should be able to protect
their customers’ confidential information
C Quality Quality requirements in the airline industry are much higher than in the consumer
market. This is because a failure in the airline industry may result in the death of
hundreds or thousands of people. The perceived loss to society by such failure is
pronounced [11]. As a matter of fact, an aircraft is a very complex product. Undoubtedly,
it requires great efforts in maintaining its reliability from different parties, including high
quality of all components involved
C1 Provision of workshop This criterion refers to the availability, content, and format of the workshop report. Airline
report companies rely on such detailed reports to check against the quality and specifications of
parts. Well-kept documentation of parts specifications can eliminate the waste of having
both the customer and the supplier inspect parts for quality assurance. The availability of
correct and accurate reports is thus important to ensure smooth operations of airline
companies
C2 MTBUR/MTBUF (actual The reliability of a component could be expressed as the probability that it will perform well
versus guarantee) according to certain specifications for a defined length of time under prescribed conditions
[11]. Mean time between unscheduled repair (MTBUR) and mean time between unscheduled
failure (MTBUF) are two indicators that have been widely used in the industry by
manufacturers

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Table 1 (Continued)

Criteria and subcriteria Explanations and justifications

C3 Warranty A warranty is a contract between a buyer and a manufacturer that becomes effective upon
the sale of an item. The purpose of a warranty is basically to establish liability in case of a
premature failure of an item, where ‘failure’ is meant as the inability of the item to perform
its intended function [40]. The contract specifies the required performance of an item, and
also specifies the buyer’s responsibilities with regards to due care and operation of the
purchased item. This criterion refers to the degree to which suppliers fulfil or exceed the
warranty credit terms as per the contract or guarantee
C4 Preventive maintenance Performance of facilities and equipment is critical to a manufacturer’s ability to produce low-
plan/maintenance cost, high-quality products. Therefore, effective equipment maintenance has become
effort increasingly important in producing high-quality products. Djamaludin et al. [40] defined
preventive maintenance (PM) and corrective maintenance (CM) as the actions to control the
deterioration process leading to failure of a system and to restore the system to its
operational state through corrective actions after a failure has occurred. PM can prevent
those failures from happening at a bad time, can sense when a failure is about to occur and
fix it before it causes damage, and can often preserve capital investments by ensuring that
equipment is operating in good conditions
C5 Application of advanced This criterion refers to the application of advanced quality techniques in production.
quality technique Examples of such techniques include, but are not limited to, quality function deployment
(QFD), failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA), value analysis (VA), Taguchi, and cause and
effect diagrams (fishbone diagrams) [15]. The applications of these techniques aid the early
discovery of failure parts and helps to find the cause of failure and to improve product
quality. Since the airline industry values reliable parts highly, these techniques help the
companies in ensuring the supply of high-quality components
C6 Workforce participation in This criterion refers to the proportion of the workforce participating in quality improvement
quality improvement and/or the degree of empowerment of the workforce in the quality improvement process. For
good suppliers that serve the airline industry, the workforce participation approach provides
the option to collaborate actively in various quality improvement processes, and helps the
companies to consolidate and enhance mutual support and knowledge sharing between
them and their customers. Knowledge sharing would lead to improvement of production
process and product quality, which could be beneficial to both the airline companies and the
suppliers
C7 Corrective action respond This criterion refers to the supplier’s response in implementing the corrective actions as
required by its customers, and the supplier’s effort in undertaking procedures regarding the
corrective actions. The time in responding to the request and the time to be taken in
completing the request may be the measures for this criterion
D Assurance of supply ‘Assurance of supply’ refers to the ability of a supplier to offer what its customers need at the
right time, with the right quantity, with right documentation, and within its guaranteed
turnaround time. This is highly related to the distinctive nature of the airline industry –
24 h operations every day [4, 6]. The assurance of supply of maintenance services and
components becomes critical since it could affect not only the business by delaying the
flight schedules but also the effectiveness of airline companies in maximizing the
employees’ performance
D1 Shipment accuracy (on The criterion refers to the supplier’s compliance with the predetermined order due date and
time) time within the allowable limits, which are set by individual airline companies
D2 Shipment accuracy (on The criterion refers to the supplier’s compliance with the predetermined order quantity
quantity) within the allowable limits, which are set by individual airline companies
D3 Accuracy of This criterion refers to the accuracy of documentations, including invoices, delivery notes,
paperwork/delivery etc. Some airline companies may have their specified format of the paperwork, and it is the
notes/invoices, etc. responsibility of the supplier to provide accurate paperwork that is consistent with the airline
companies’ specified format
D4 Fulfil lead Lead time refers to the time taken from receipt of an order to its delivery. It is not surprising
time/turnaround time that this is included in the criterion hierarchy as the airline industry is a time-sensitive
guarantee industry and any delays would possibly cause problems that may eventually affect the freight
scheduling and hence affect the on-time performance of flights. In fact, many firms are
actively searching for suppliers with shorter lead times, and many potential customers
consider lead time a very important criterion for vendor selection on account of a number of
benefits that could be generated from lead time reduction [41]
E Proactive in measuring It is difficult for the airline companies at the end of the supply chain to manage or
supply chain/own monitor the whole chain solely. In this connection, aviation suppliers should help in
suppliers managing their respective supply chains. Such a view is shared by Mccollum [14] who
stated that ‘if industries are to remain competitive into the twenty-first century, they
must look outward to their respective supply chains and integrate vertically to facilitate
smooth information and material flows in both directions’. The effectiveness of supply
chain management also affects the suppliers themselves because a large portion of their
inventory may be reduced, and hence their customers may gain benefits from the
consequent saving

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748
Criteria and subcriteria
F E-business initiatives
G CI programme/six-sigma
programme/TQM
programme, etc.
H Research and
development (R&D)
I Organizational culture
and strategic issue
I1 Management
attitude/commitment
and outlook for future
I2 Company organizational
structure and personnel
I3 Company past
record/reputation in
the field
J Compatibility
(buyer–supplier
partnership)
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F T S Chan, H K Chan, R W L Ip, and H C W Lau
Table 1 (Continued)
Explanations and justifications
E-business encompasses the strategic use of information and communication technologies in
order to interact with customers, employees, suppliers, and partners through multiple
communication and distribution channels. McIvor et al. [39] analysed the impact of
internet technologies on four airline operators at the customer interface and on the
airline industry itself. It was found that transaction efficiency is a fundamental value
driver of the electronic business activities of the airline industry. They further pointed out
that airline companies had been using the internet to enhance their competitive position,
to control the cost, and to enhance the relationship with the customer. For example,
online ticketing is a significant way of reducing transaction cost. In addition, Taneja [4]
found that airlines could leverage their e-business initiatives to improve the
relationship among their value-chain partners, suppliers, and vendors. The value of
e-business could be justified in the improvement in productivity of both suppliers and
airline companies, which in turn leads to higher profit
Continuous improvement (CI) refers to the ability of a supplier in encouraging new ideas,
creating the ideas positively, praising and rewarding successful ideas, and developing any
other programmes with similar purpose. In a study of supplier evaluation, Simpson et al.
[16] examined and analysed 84 formal supplier evaluation instruments currently
employed by companies across a broad spectrum of industries. It was found that CI ranks
the second. On the other hand, the ‘six-sigma’ concept itself refers to a performance
target to achieve only 3.4 defects for every million activities or opportunities. Six-sigma
has been viewed as one of the most potent strategies to accelerate improvements in
processes, products, quality, and services, and radically to reduce manufacturing and/or
administrative costs. This could be achieved by relentlessly focusing on elimination of
waste and reduction of defects and variations
Research and development (R&D) is placed in the criterion hierarchy because it is a way
to satisfy the passengers’ needs and also the airline companies’ needs. It is noted that
advances in technology could boost demand if they lead to safer and more efficient
aircraft, to congestion-free airspace and airports, and to customer-friendly distribution
systems. Some practitioners have argued that R&D should be a factor in selection of
suppliers so that buyers will not suddenly be faced with technological obsolescence [42].
In light of this, R&D should still be carried out, and, undoubtedly, suppliers could play a
vital role in this field to sustain the growth of the airline industry, where technological
advancement always helps in reducing cost, improving productivity, and leading to a
better environment
This criterion refers to different aspects in relation to an organization’s structural and
cultural issues. They are important because the responsibility for safety, and thus
prevention of accidents, rests on top management, which controls the allocation of
resources through the proper channels in the organization structure
Management commitment reflects the actions and values of key decision-makers of a
supplier regarding the relationship, acceptance of joint goals, values of partnerships, and
willingness to invest resources in the relationship between its customers. Commitment also
implies an importance of relationship into the future, leading to a positive effect on
profitability [43]. Airline companies may view the supplier commitment on three facets as
described by Anderson and Weitz [44], namely ‘a desire to develop a stable relationship’,
‘a willingness to make short-term sacrifices to maintain the relationship’, and ‘a confidence in
the stability of the relationship’
Organizational structure refers to the clarity of employees’ job definitions within the
organization [15]. It may also refer to the formal framework by which jobs are divided,
grouped, and coordinated [45]. Examining the structure allows the airline companies to know
how the suppliers’ works are divided, and gives an insight into the relative importance of
each component of the organization. A clear organizational structure could allow employees
to accomplish their tasks effectively and efficiently since a clear chain of command and
communication channels is visible to all staff. Kamata [46] used three airline/aerospace-
related cases to illustrate the problems of formalized bureaucratic structures associated with
technical problem solving. The author highlighted the critical importance of a system
structure in which the professionalism of workers is involved by saying that ‘they (the
problems) occurred in work environments that place great emphasis on quality. Yet they
occurred because quality consciousness was overshadowed by a system that does not help
people solve such issues’
This criterion basically refers to the performance history of a supplier’s products, and the
position of the supplier in the industry (including product leadership and reputation). If the
supplier’s past record/reputation is not that good, the perception is that services and
products of the supplier might not be as good as specified, and hence more resources may
need to be allocated for further examination
Suppliers and airline companies can be viewed as partners in the sense that they rely on each
other for survival and they could collaborate with each other to gain marketing benefits
and reduce overall cost. This is supported by the findings of Simpson et al. [16] concerning
the importance of channel relationships in the supplier evaluation context. In addition,
Min [36] also put ‘buyer–supplier partnerships’ as a criterion in selecting a supplier
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Table 1 (Continued)

Criteria and subcriteria Explanations and justifications

J1 Level of trust and Trust is an important ingredient in running a business, especially in the advanced
understanding information technology era. The internet has provided numerous opportunities for
commerce that were unprecedented in the last decade. The new technology breaks down the
traditional boundaries between business partners. However, the importance of trust in
e-commerce, which is rapidly growing in different industries, cannot be overlooked and
deserves special attention. Given the importance of trustworthy relationships and the
growing trend of e-business in the airline industry, measuring and understanding the level of
trust could help the companies to recognize their readiness to do business with the suppliers,
and the efforts required by them to reach the readiness stage for business interaction with
suppliers. Obviously, the higher the level of trust and understanding, the less effort is
required
J2 Flexibility/negotiability It is important for an airline company to choose suppliers with flexibility since an aircraft
typically consists of thousand of parts that require a large amount of money to be spent on
maintenance. With a higher level of flexibility, both parties could alleviate the losses due to
any unexpected situations. Adequate flexibility speeds up conflict resolution, if this exists,
and allows both parties to reduce unnecessary interaction costs
K Perceived risk Owing to a number of exogenous factors that influence international sourcing,
international supplier selection is much riskier than its domestic counterpart.
Consequently, international supplier selection decisions can be strongly affected by
perceived risks. There are various types of international risk, including the risks of
political instability, contract disputes, or legal claims, etc.
K1 Political Business interactions, be it domestic or cross-country, are affected by governmental policies
stability/governmental and political stability. For example, taxation systems, particularly for foreign corporations,
policy can change rapidly for any political reasons
K2 Legal system A credible, independent, and strong judicial system underpins one country’s stability and
success. A country with a stable and robust legal system increases the confidence of
investors, and hence the scale on which, business is conducted in that country. As mentioned
previously, the internet has changed the business modes. Therefore, legal standards relating
to data protection and document authentication could be a concern because they normally
vary from country to country
K3 Labour dispute/stable As the airline industry depends on the technological support from its suppliers to a larger
workforce extent, maintaining a stable, skilled, and professional workforce is crucial for a supplier to
deliver products and services with high quality. Therefore, suppliers that keep a stable
workforce should gain rewards as it secures the delivery of high-quality products and services
to airline companies. However, in assessing this, airline companies should take into account
that automation/technological advancement might replace the workforce requirements
K4 National cultural National culture is the values and attitudes shared by individuals from a specific country that
compatibility shape their behaviour and their beliefs [45]. It has been indicated that national culture has a
greater effect on employees than does their organization’s culture [47]. Obviously, languages,
business customs, ethics, and communication devices vary from country to country, and
such differences may affect the effectiveness of communication and hence the suppliers’
cooperation with the airline companies
L Financial issues When an organization is looking for a long-term relationship with another firm, whether
or not the firm has a strong financial background, or at least whether or not it is
financially stable, is a crucial factor. This is also true for the airline industry. A good
supplier therefore is not expected to be financially unstable
L1 Economic performance Economic performance refers to the total revenue and profitability, or similar indicators, of a
supplier
L2 Financial stability Financial stability is one of the criteria to evaluate suppliers’ performance because,
regardless of how good the performance of a supplier is, an unstable financial situation will
gradually weaken the long-term business relationship with its customer
M Technological issues As a matter of fact, in order to be qualified as a manufacturer to supply aircraft components,
the manufacturer needs to obtain part manufacturer approvals, which are used to approve
the design and manufacturing of replacement parts. Therefore, technological issues are
selected as one of the criteria
M1 Technical capability Qualifications (e.g. the ISO quality system) gained by a supplier guarantees technical
capabilities in manufacturing qualified aircraft components
M2 Assessment of future If a supplier’s future manufacturing facilities and capability is not good enough or is
manufacturing facilities inadequate to respond well with respect to the industry trend, it may affect the dependence
and equipment of the airline companies, and hence affect the supplier’s business. On the other hand, a
capabilities supplier who has strong technical awareness would invest in facilities for continuous
improvement
M3 Response to quality This criterion refers to the supplier’s ability and responsiveness to solve the quality problems
problem that are raised by the company during audit, incoming quality control, installation, etc.
N Safety, environmental These issues are more people oriented. The rationale to include this criterion is simply
and education issues because any organization needs people. In selecting a supplier, these issues could not be
overlooked
N1 Health and safety (via Maintaining a safe environment routinely can allow the staff to work more effectively and
visit/audit, etc.) lead to high employee performance [48]

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750 F T S Chan, H K Chan, R W L Ip, and H C W Lau

Table 1 (Continued)

Criteria and subcriteria Explanations and justifications

N2 Environmental As there is an expected growth in air traffic worldwide in the long run, environmental
management impacts on the airline industry will also increase. The future growth is likely to depend on, to
plan/certification a certain extent, further reductions in the environmental impact of airline operations.
Suppliers with their own environmental management programmes or plans would be seen as
a sign of commitment, which demonstrates the willingness to establish long-term stable
partnerships, for sustaining the growth of the airline industry
N3 General education This criterion broadly refers to the availability of professional educational activities and a
scheduled yearly training programme. ‘High levels of skill training’ and ‘extensive employee
involvement and training’ are two high-performance work practices that could lead to both
high individual and high organizational performance [49]
N4 Education to This criterion refers to the availability of training aids and educational courses specified for
quality/technical staff the quality/technical staff. The know-how and skills of people are increasingly being
recognized by business strategists as a key source of competitive advantages

Fig. 2 Normal hierarchy view in Expert Choice

company. These suppliers are responsible for sup-

plying component or spare parts and technical
repair or maintenance services to the company.
As discussed above, the AHP-based model (deci-
sion model or criterion hierarchy) was constructed
as shown in Fig. 1, involving five levels, with the
top as goal down to the bottom as alternatives,
which are the five potential suppliers. The AHP-
based model was then input to Expert Choice. Expert
Choice provided a model in two styles, which are
presented in Figs 2 and 3.
4.2 Evaluation of factors in the model by
making pairwise relative comparisons
Pairwise comparisons were based on the preference
of the case study company. That is, the weightings
of the objectives and criteria were completed with
support from the company via consultative visits
and email correspondence. For most of the judge-
ment or assessment processes, the types of compa-
rison were chosen by following the suggestion or
comment as stated in Table 2. Figure 4 gives an
example to show how the three assessment areas
Fig. 3 Side view of the model with clear and complete
structure shown
are compared in a nine-point scale. In the figure it
is shown that the criterion ‘performance assessment’
is two points and four points more important than
the criteria ‘continuous improvement and innovation’
and ‘company background/business structure’ res-
pectively, while the criterion ‘continuous improve-
ment and innovation’ is three points more important
than the criterion ‘company background/business
structure’. This comparison means that the criterion
‘performance assessment’ is the most important factor
to be considered among the three factors listed above.
However, the relative importance of this factor over the
other two is only ‘slightly more important than’. It is
possible that there is no single dominating criterion
among the factors under consideration. That is why
pairwise comparisons work well in prioritizing these
intangible factors.
In addition, Tables 3 to 5 present the overall global
weighting information of each AHP model element.

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 A decision support system for supplier selection in the airline industry 751

At the same time, the consistency ratio of each the portion of the goal node priority that the node
judgement was checked to ensure that it is lower possesses (the global priorities of the children of a
than or equal to 10 per cent in order to help the node add up to the global priority of the parent
decision-makers reduce inconsistencies in pairwise node).
comparisons, as suggested by Saaty [23]. It is noted
that, during the judgement process, it is impractical
to pursue zero inconsistent ratios, i.e. perfect consis- 4.3 Synthesis to identify the ‘best’ alternative
tency. One of the local priorities derived is presented After pairwise relative comparisons had been per-
in Fig. 5. formed, the local priorities were synthesized from
Local priority refers to the priority of a node rela- the goal, and the overall priorities were calculated.
tive to its parent node. It represents the percentage The overall priorities of each of the five suppliers
of the parent node priority that is inherited by the are presented in Fig. 6. The distributive mode was
child (the local priorities of the children of a parent selected since the rankings of other suppliers were
node add up to 1). Global priority refers to the prior- of interest to the decision-maker. Supplier 4 received
ity of each node relative to the goal. It represents the highest rating of 0.222. Therefore, it is recognized
as the best supplier. Next came supplier 1, with a
score of 0.207, followed by supplier 3 with a score
Table 2 Pairwise comparison: types and modes of of 0.203, then supplier 2 with a score of 0.189, and
comparison offered in Expert Choice last was supplier 5 with the lowest score of 0.179.
Comment from Expert Choice
manuals
Types of comparison
4.4 Examination and verification of the decision
Importance Appropriate when comparing one
criterion (objective) with another
After the overall priorities had been derived, analysis
Preference Used when comparing the was performed to investigate the sensitivity of the
alternatives ranking of the alternatives to changes in the impor-
Likelihood Used when comparing the
probability of outcomes. It may
tance of the criteria. Sensitivity analysis from the
be used with either criteria or
alternatives
Modes of comparison
Verbal Compare elements (nodes) using Table 3 Priorities of primary assessment objective with
English language terms respect to goal
Graphical Compare elements (nodes) using a
graphical gauge Primary assessment objective Priority
Numerical Compare elements (nodes) using
numbers in a matrix or a Performance assessment 0.531
questionnaire format Continuous improvement and innovation 0.242
Company background and business structure 0.227

Fig. 4 Example of pairwise comparison

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752 F T S Chan, H K Chan, R W L Ip, and H C W Lau

Table 4 Global priorities of criteria (under each primary Table 5 Global priorities of subcriteria (under each
assessment objective) criterion)

Criterion Priority Subcriteria Priority

Performance assessment Cost
Cost 0.196 A1 0.079
Satisfaction of supplier service 0.049 A2 0.079
Quality 0.167 A3 0.039
Assurance of supply 0.119 Satisfaction of supplier service
B1 0.012
Continuous improvement and innovation
B2 0.009
Proactive in measuring supply chain/ 0.043
B3 0.011
own suppliers B4 0.017
E-business initiatives 0.047 Quality
CI programme/six-sigma programme/ 0.069 C1 0.041
TQM programme C2 0.044
Research and development 0.082
C3 0.020
Company background and business structure C4 0.016
Organizational culture and strategic issues 0.021 C5 0.016
Compatibility (buyer–supplier partnership) 0.046 C6 0.011
Perceived risk 0.039 C7 0.019
Financial issues 0.061 Assurance of supply
Technological issues 0.046 D1 0.032
Safety, environmental, and education issues 0.014 D2 0.028
D3 0.030
D4 0.029
Organizational culture and strategic issues
goal node showed the sensitivity of the suppliers with I1 0.015
respect to the three assessment objectives, i.e. per- I2 0.004
I3 0.002
formance assessment, continuous improvement Compatibility (buyer–supplier partnership)
and innovation, and company background and busi- J1 0.024
ness structure. These sensitivity analyses are presen- J2 0.021
Perceived risk
ted graphically in the next section. In addition, if K1 0.010
supplier information is available and time is suffi- K2 0.012
cient, the airline company should check the decision K3 0.013
K4 0.004
against intuition to avoid any possible mistakes. Financial issues
Furthermore, if any discrepancies exist or are found, L1 0.028
continuous investigation is recommended and the L2 0.033
Technological issues
iteration should be repeated as required. More M1 0.022
discussion can be found in section 5. M2 0.009
M3 0.014
Safety, environmental, and education issues
N1 0.004
5 DISCUSSION N2 0.002
N3 0.003
N4 0.006
5.1 Inconsistency ratio
As mentioned previously, AHP and Expert Choice do
not force the airline to be perfectly consistent, and
the response to the overall utility of alternatives to
instead a consistency test is provided to investigate
changes in the relative importance (weight) of each
the degree of consistency along with each judgement
attribute. Second, it demonstrates the way to com-
process once the local priorities were derived. In
plete the sensitivity analysis (using the gradient-
general, an acceptance inconsistency ratio is 10 per
sensitive graph). Without this part, decision-makers
cent or below, although 20 per cent might still be
would find difficulties in visualizing and understand-
thought to be comfortably acceptable [29]. It is
ing the process and hence ignore the importance of
seldom that the judgement process aims to be
the analysis.
perfectly consistent, i.e. with an inconsistency ratio
After the initial solution was obtained with the
of zero.
given weightings on alternatives as well as other ele-
ments in the AHP model, sensitivity analysis was
performed at the goal level for all criteria, but only
5.2 Sensitivity analysis
one selected case at node level is presented for sim-
Sensitivity analysis was performed in this study for plicity. At the goal level, it identified the impact of
two major reasons. First, it serves as an integral changes in performance assessment objectives on
part of the whole evaluation process by exploring alternatives. At node level (below the goal and above

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 A decision support system for supplier selection in the airline industry 753

Fig. 5 Derived local priorities with respect to parent, performance assessment (note that the sum of
the priorities of cost (A), satisfaction of supplier surface (B), quality (C), and assurance of supply
(D) is equal to 1 since these are local priorities with respect to the parent node, performance
assessment)

Fig. 6 Overall priorities of alternatives in distributive mode (note that the distributive mode is selected
(the distributive icon is pressed))

the alternatives), it identified the impact of changes
in nodes immediately beneath the selected node on
the alternatives.
The results of the sensitivity analysis at the goal
level are presented in Figs 7 to 9 (in the form of
gradient–sensitivity graphs). They show the sensitiv-
ity of three primary assessment objectives, i.e. per-
formance assessment, continuous improvement
and innovation, and company background and busi-
ness structure. Figure 10 presents a one-node level
sensitive analysis in a different approach by using a
performance sensitivity graph.
In Fig. 7, the solid vertical line shows the original
priority of the objective. The gradient (slope) of each
of the alternative lines represents the rate of change
in priority for the alternatives as the priority of the
objective is changed. The representation of the alter-
natives is labelled as five tabs on the right-hand side.
The priority of each alternative is the intersection
between the respective lines and the solid vertical
line in Fig. 7. Thus, current ranking is supplier 1 >
supplier 4 > supplier 3 > supplier 2 > supplier 5.
As already stated, the gradient (slope) of each of
the alternative lines represents the rate of change in

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754 F T S Chan, H K Chan, R W L Ip, and H C W Lau

Fig. 7 Sensitivity of performance assessment

Fig. 8 Sensitivity of continuous improvement and innovation

priority for the alternatives as the priority of objec-
tives is changed. Taking Fig. 7 as an example again,
the priority of supplier 4 (supp4) would decrease
while that of supplier 1 (supp1) would increase if
the priority of performance assessment were increa-
sed (the vertical line is moved to the right). For each
gradient analysis graph, the areas where the supplier
rankings remain unchanged were identified (as
shown within the dotted vertical lines). These are
the areas where the supplier ratings are not sensitive.
In Fig. 7 it can be seen that, within the first three
areas (i.e. 1 to 3) of performance assessment, the
supplier ratings are not sensitive with respect to sup-
plier 4. Hence, when the importance (reflected as the

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 A decision support system for supplier selection in the airline industry 755

Fig. 9 Sensitivity of company background and business structure

Fig. 10 Performance sensitivity graph of node under objective, continuous improvement and
innovation

weighting) of the performance assessment, which is
now 0.531 as per the position of the solid vertical
line, increases to 0.696 or decreases to 0.457, the
current ranking of the suppliers does not change.
Regarding the performance assessment, supplier 4
is still the best subject in the sensitivity analysis. By
the same token, sensitive analyses for the other two
assessment areas were performed and are shown in
Figs 8 and 9.
In Fig. 8, again there are four insensitive areas
identified. The areas are bounded by dotted lines. It
is obvious that supplier 4 performs almost the best
all the time until the importance of continuous
improvement drops below 4.9 per cent, i.e. area 1.
In Fig. 9, only two insensitive areas are identified,
but supplier 4 is insensitive in this case. Figures 7
to 9 show that a ranking of alternatives is sensitive
to changes in importance of all the other criteria,

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756 F T S Chan, H K Chan, R W L Ip, and H C W Lau

except for company background and business struc- including the set of criteria and the weightings,
ture. It is observed that the ranking of suppliers should be used as a reference for constructing a
remains more or less the same throughout the unique AHP model for a particular airline, or adjust-
entire range. The overall utility of the alternatives is ment would be made before directly applying
robust with changes in the importance of company the model. Possible sources of variation could be
background and business structure. identified as follows.
Figure 10 presents a performance sensitivity graph
1. Different sizes of the airlines. Large airlines gene-
of supplier performance on nodes under its parent
rally have greater power in negotiation on the
node, continuous improvement and innovation. Per-
initial price, contractual terms, etc., with the sup-
formance sensitivity analysis shows how well each
pliers. The imbalance in power structure between
alternative performs with respect to each criterion.
suppliers and airlines may affect the supplier’s
The importance of criteria is depicted from the verti-
attitude on such an evaluation model.
cal bars, and values can be read from the left-hand
2. Different operational characteristics. The size of
axis. The performance of each alternative with
the aircraft fleet, or the size (frequency and
respect to each of the criteria is depicted by the
length – long haul or short haul) of the routes it
intersection of a sequence of line segments with
operates, partly influences the amount of replace-
the vertical line at each of the criteria. The overall
ment parts needed and the frequency of mainte-
performance of an alternative is depicted by the
nance required. Moreover, the initial supplier set
intersection of the alternative line segments with
may be different regarding the different aircraft
the ‘overall’ vertical line at the right of the graph.
fleet.
Performance of the alternatives can be read from
3. Different view of top management. The top man-
the right-hand axis. Note that alternative line seg-
agement view is very important in determining
ments between the objectives are drawn for visual
the weightings since the future company direc-
clarity only and do not convey any information.
tion is determined largely by them. For example,
This is different from the gradient-sensitive graph
on the progress of e-business, it may vary from
previously discussed.
one airline to another. Therefore, a completely
As shown in Fig. 10, supplier 4 performs the best
different set of weightings may be applied in its
overall. However, this does not imply that supplier 4
unique model.
performs the best on all four criteria. Instead,
4. Changing environment. Because of the changing
supplier 4 performs the best for only two areas,
external environment, the criteria need to be
namely the ‘continuous improvement program/six-
reviewed progressively, and adjustment of weight-
sigma/TQM programme’ and ‘research and devel-
ings is necessary. For example, environmental
opment’. It ranks the worst in ‘e-business initiatives’
concerns may still largely focus on the operation
and third in ‘proactive management in supply
fleet. However, the trend of more and more
chain/its supplier’. Hence, in spite of supplier 4
governments and organizations realizing the
being the overall best supplier, the company could
importance of environmental sustainability to-
see there is a potential for supplier 4 to improve in
wards economic growth may alert airlines of the
those two particular areas. This may be a piece of
need to adjust the weighting on the criterion
particularly important information to a company
‘supplier environmental management’ so as fully
planning to expand its e-business transactions to
to integrate and gain benefit from the supply chain
speed up and simplify the whole administration
effort.
procedure. Similar analysis could be performed on
the other four suppliers. This is a very important
piece of decision support information to the senior 6 CONCLUSIONS
management of the company.
The purpose of this study has been to develop a DSS
by using AHP to solve the supplier selection problem
5.3 Individual airline characteristics and
in the airline industry. A hierarchical model has been
the changing environment
developed. With the use of the AHP-based decision-
Another aspect of this discussion is a more funda- making software Expert Choice, the result showed
mental issue, that is, individual airline characteris- that the performance assessment objective, which
tics. While it is hoped to apply the proposed AHP comprises subcriteria including cost, satisfaction
model to all airlines, the model may not be able of supplier service, quality, and assurance of supply,
to take account of numerous characteristics of was among the most important areas to be
different airline companies, as well as changing addressed, while the other two objectives, continu-
industry needs. Therefore, the proposed model, ous improvement and innovation and company

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 A decision support system for supplier selection in the airline industry
background and business structure, were perceived
as being of roughly equal importance.
One limitation of this study is that the developed
model for finding evaluation criteria is mainly based
on literature sources or the internet, and on advice
given by the case study company. However, it might
still be possible to use another approach (e.g. a sur-
vey) to augment the list of criteria used within the
industry, which is a future line of research of this
study. No matter how, airline companies are recom-
mended to make necessary adjustment of the
proposed model prior to applying it directly.
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