AHP BASED SELECTION OF THIRD-PARTY LOGISTICS SERVICE PROVIDER

Abstract

Today, as in all other sectors, competition in the logistics sector is getting harder day by day. In order to be successful, firms should be able to take the right decisions and fast as they can to be able to catch changing competition conditions. The first stage of making the right decisions is to reach the correct and necessary data quickly. Although the concept of big data, which is one of the innovations brought by the Industry 4.0 revolution, has significantly facilitated access to information, it is still considered an important challenge to analyze this data obtained by companies during daily business processes in a meaningful way. Like many other sectors, the import / export sector has difficulties in the selection process of third party logistics companies in outsourcing activities. Hence, the purpose of this study is to decide the criteria that import export companies should pay attention while choosing a 3rd party logistics company and to determine the priority and importance of these criteria. Both qualitative and quantitative methods used in the study, in the criteria selection phase, one of the directors of Turkey's leading import / export company’s was interviewed, in the second phase of the study, obtained criteria were prioritized using the AHP methodology. As a result of the study, a total of 16 criteria, 4 main and 12 sub-criteria were determined, and cost was determined as the most important main criterion in 3rd party logistics company selection process.