Seleção de fornecedores de carvão para a siderurgia brasileira: uma abordagem multicritério

Abstract

The cokemaking coal to supply the demand of large Brazilian steel companies has been acquired in the foreign market, because the quality of Brazilian coal is inadequate for coke production, an intermediary product obtained from burning coals balanced mixtures in appropriate ovens. In iron ore reduction technology in blast furnace, coke acts a means permeabilizer, fuel and reducer, being irreplaceable in this process, which makes the coking coal the main raw material for the Brazilian steel industry, because it is fully imported and the item with the greatest impact on the cost of the steel produced in the country. The acquisition of raw materials in the manufacturing industry, like the steel industry, should be part of the business strategy and the suppliers selection can be a major step for the security of Brazilian steel mills supply, especially when it comes to cokemaking coal which is fully imported, involving a lot of financial resources in foreign currencies. It is well known that effective suppliers contribute to the success of any enterprise. Therefore, the selection of suppliers is a key activity in an organization supply chain management. The choice of the best suppliers is a complex problem in which many objective factors are present such as: costs and others that can be measured and subjective factors such as: suppliers reputation; cultural issues; commercial partnerships; risks and others for which there isnt measurement scales. However, these subjective factors can be compared through trials, by those involved in decision making. This problem can be treated using Multicriteria Decision Methods (MCDM), for considering more than one criterion and new variables in decision-making beyond those traditionally considered, such as price and delivery time. This study shows how the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), one of Multicriteria Decision Methods, can be applied to a model of decision support in the selection of cokemaking coal suppliers to the Brazilian steel industry. The AHP enables decision makers a better understanding of the problem and the maintenance of rationality in situations where many variables and different evaluation criteria are present, because its structure follows the intuitive way that managers use to make decisions. Therefore, the application of AHP, by its structure and ease of use, can be a very useful tool in the decision making process of selection of the best coal suppliers, contributing to security in its supply and competitiveness of large Brazilian steel companies.