Application of AHP in reverse logistics service provider selection: a case study

Abstract

In the recent time, reverse logistics has become essential for organisations because of unavoidable product returns, government regulation, environmental concerns and sustainability. Reverse logistic is one way to reduce costs, increase revenue and remain competitive in market. In many organisations, by-products and waste materials have the potential to become valuable inputs. Not many organisations have a satisfactory reverse logistics system for recovering their rejected parts for reuse or recycle. This is because of lack of systematic investigation and importance. In this connection, this paper formulates the reverse logistics service provider selection as a multi criteria decision making problem and develops a methodology to select the best two reverse logistics service providers for an injection moulding parts manufacturer company using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). A real life case study demonstrates the application of the proposed method and sensitivity analysis is carried out to confirm the robustness of the proposed methodology.