  To improve a firms supply chain performance it is essential to have a vendor
evaluation process to be able to showcase an organizations success in the
present aggressive market. Hence, the process of evaluating the vendor is a
crucial task of the purchasing executives in supply chain management. The
objective of this research is to propose a methodology to evaluate the vendors
for a steel pipe manufacturing firm in Gujarat, India. For the purpose of the
study, the Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to evaluate the best raw
material vendor for this company. Multiple qualitative and quantitative
criteria are involved in the vendor evaluation process. To solve the complex
problem of vendor evaluation, a tradeoff between this multicriteria is
important. The outcomes indicated that the AHP technique makes it simpler to
assign weights for the different criteria for evaluating the vendor. Research
findings showed that quality is the most important criterion followed by
delivery, cost and vendor relationship management.
