Abstract
With the TFT-LCD industries become more mature, the product development times and life cycles have become shorter. The production of small and medium size TFT-LCD product not only need to focus on the TFT-LCD’s R&D, but also need to assemble the related material components. A TFT-LCD product includes more than ten key components which are provided by different suppliers at high, middle, and low levels of products. The reliability of materials suppliers will affect the sample product lead time and product development process. Therefore, supplier selection and management is a critical factor for enterprises in developing new product. For selection and management of suppliers, the decision makers can sort the qualified suppliers into three groups (high, middle and low), then using decision indicators to match suitable suppliers with the new product. By doing so, the enterprises can reduce times of change suppliers in the product development process and shorten sample test procedure. This study aims to establish decision indicators of supplier selection in the TFT-LCD Industry by adopting AHP (analytic hierarchy process) framework. There are five goals and fourteen attributes need to be assessed with corresponding attribute weights. The results can be a basis for the decision maker to select suitable key components suppliers. To examine the validity of this approach, an empirical study was conducted in a small and medium size TFT-LCD company in Taiwan, and the results demonstrated the practical viability of this approach.