The purchasing function has gained great importance in the supply chain management due to factors such as globalization, increased value added in supply, and accelerated technological change. Selecting the right suppliers significantly reduces purchasing costs, improves competitiveness in the market and enhances end user satisfaction. The selecting process mainly involves evaluation of different alternative suppliers based on different criteria. This process is essentially considered as a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem which is affected by different tangible and intangible...