Supplier selection model for a Brazilian oil company based on a multi-criteria group decision approach

Background: Increasing competition among companies in the oil and gas industry results in a greater need for efficient processes. In Brazil, most oil operations are owned by a single company, which has a public trade structure. The company requires a large number of suppliers, including suppliers of raw materials, equipment and services. In fact, the company needs to employ experts to assist in the supplier selection process in order to be able to choose the best available alternatives. Therefore, supplier selection has been seen to have a significant impact on the success or otherwise of the company´s ventures.Objectives: This article proposes a group decision multi-criteria model for selecting suppliers for a Brazilian oil company.Method: It is proposed to use the PROMETHEE II method to obtain decision-makers' individual evaluations and the voting procedure by quartiles so as to convert the individual positions into a position for the group.Results: An application of the model is performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the model in addressing supplier selection problems in a context with multiple stakeholders. Combining the results from the individual analysis of the PROMETHEE II method with the voting by quartiles procedure allowed individual preferences to be aggregated into a result that was representative of the group and produced a ranking of suppliers for one of the type of services used by the company.Conclusion: The results were very satisfactory, demonstrating that it is possible to apply the model to a context featuring additional decision-makers and alternatives.