**Author details**

The current Brazilian scenario, with economic recession, suggests unbalances favoring Costs and Risks. Then, after sensitivity analysis (**Figure 4**), SP8, SP9 and SP7 were prioritized in this order. That is, when available SP8 will be chosen as 3PL provider; SP7 will provide 3PL only

14 Applications and Theory of Analytic Hierarchy Process - Decision Making for Strategic Decisions

The SCM team validated the results. The experts considered the AHP based model as appli‐ cable in practice. Besides the results are considered adequate, the steps of AHP were perceived

This chapter presents two applications of AHP to SCM. In both applications, absolute meas‐ urement was adopted instead of the original relative measurement. That is, in both applications the set of criteria was larger than usual AHP applications. With absolute measurement pairwise comparisons between suppliers are not necessary. This way, the effort for the AHP application is reduced. However, this is not the main reason for absolute measurement, in both cases. In the case of RA by an automobile plant, there was feeling that the decision must be impartial. That is, pairwise comparing Supplier S1 with S2 may invoke past deficiencies

Another reason for absolute measurement, only for the SS by a chemical corporation, is the avoiding of RR. That is, for a problem of SS, RR seemed not justifiable. If Supplier S8 is preferred than S7 and S9, it must be preferred without S7 or S9 in the decision, and even if other Suppliers S10, S11, S12, …, all worst then S7 were inserted in the decision. Concluding: there is no space for RR in SS. For that reason, AHP must be applied to SS with absolute measurement and ideal

On the other hand, adding new suppliers in an RA problem may change previous priorities of older suppliers. This way, RR can be legitimate for this problem. Then normal synthesis, and also, relative measurement, seems to be proper procedures for AHP application to RA.

It is important to state that this chapter presents some highlights based on only two cases. Obviously, more examples and real cases must be studied to generalize our conclusions. Perhaps the main contribution of this work is presenting that there are different ways to solve a problem. The way a problem is solved defines a decision, which may be irreversible, as the

This research was financially supported by Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Grant

when both SP8 and SP9 were not available.

**5. Conclusions**

already overcome.

selection of a supplier to a specific order.

**Acknowledgements**

No. 2013/03525-7

synthesis.

as a better practice for supplier selection to logistics.

Valerio Antonio Pamplona Salomon\* , Claudemir Leif Tramarico and Fernando Augusto Silva Marins

\*Address all correspondence to: salomon@feg.unesp.br

Sao Paulo State University, Guaratingueta, Brazil
