Selection Of Third-party Logistics Service Providers Based On Group Decision-making

The modern logistics has already become"the third profit headspring"of enterprises. It is an important source for enterprises to be competitive by reducing cost. With the fast globalization of economics and more fierce competitions going on, in order to enhance the core competitiveness, the enterprise turns to integrative exterior and employs the third party to deal with logistics operation. To participate in the international competition with the holistic optimized supply chain, the enterprise can not only reduce the logistic cost, increase reaction speed to customers, but also improve the customer service level and competency. Besides the advantages of letting the third party to manage logistics operation, there are obvious risks existing. To ensure the success of outsourcing, the enterprise should select the third-party logistics service providers (TPLs) through the all-around evaluation.In this paper, firstly introduced is the background of the selection of the third-party logistics (TPL) service providers. Then we summarize the concept and feature of TPL, and review the research status of this area in and abroad. The content and contribution of this paper is brought forward. Secondly, it is analyzed in this paper that the existing evaluation methods of selecting TPLs. And we compare the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. Thirdly, we discuss the principles and process of TPL selection. Based on previous research, plus analysis on the enterprise'satisfaction and expectation of TPLs, we investigate one enterprise. In the paper the index chosen is discussed in detail. Finally, under the index system, we select the TPLs with the synthetic method which combines group decision-making method and extension superiority evaluation method. Then the case of one IT enterprise is analyzed, and how to apply the process of synthetic method on TPLs selection is presented in detail.