Supplier selection under risk of delivery failure: a decision-support model considering managers’ risk sensitivity

This paper studies the problem of supplier selection and order allocation in a retail supply chain (comprising suppliers, a central purchasing unit and outlets) under disruption risk. The final demand is deterministic. Suppliers are located in different geographic areas, and supplies are subject to a positive probability of disruption. Different capacity and failure probabilities for each supplier are considered. Our analysis focuses on the insurance versus profitability trade-off faced by a supply manager who buys from suppliers for the outlets. Instead of determining optimal decisions given an objective function and the risk sensitivity of the decision-maker, we use a mixed integer linear programming approach to provide decision-making support that shows a supply manager the ‘elasticity of (expected) losses versus (expected) profits’. Under this model, and depending on the profit-and-loss targets, a supply manager of known risk sensitivity (i.e. risk aversion and loss aversion) can make better decisions when choosing suppliers. Moreover, taking into account, the impact of the share of fixed costs that must be covered by the operation, we consider the net values of expected profit and loss. We discuss the potential influence of the level of the firm’s fixed costs on the supply strategy. In particular, we show how the minimum value of the gross margin needed for the strategy’s profitability affects that strategy. A numerical application is conducted to illustrate the contribution of our decision-making support mechanism, and several managerial insights are obtained.