A Study On A Company’s Carrier Selection Based On Multi-Attribute Combinatorial Auctions

Under the global market environment which based on supply chain competition, more and more companies choose transportation procurement to face the changing market conditions by outsourcing transportation and distribution to the professional third-party logistics companies, in order to save their own resources and improve comprehensive competitiveness. In recent years, auction becomes a form of trading to achieve the efficient allocation of resources, which has been used in government procurement, enterprise procurement and other kinds of the procurement. Taking A company as the research object, this thesis researches the applications of auction theory in the practical problems of transportation and distribution procurement. Through analyzing the recent statistical data which are collected by Control Tower(A department that dedicated to manage A company’s transportation and distribution business) to identify A company’s current problems of carrier selection method. Then, by summarizing auction theory and its application status in detail, and combining the main features of the transportation and distribution, the thesis selects multi-attribute combinatorial auctions to improve the levels of A company’s transportation and distribution services. Multi-attribute auctions and combinatorial auctions are two forms belong to auction. Multi-attribute auctions introduces additional non-price attributes and combinatorial auctions allows carriers to submit multiple packages according to their transport capacity, combination of the above two auctions can achieve the efficient allocation of resources and overcome the drawbacks of traditional carrier selection methods.The major works of present thesis are as follows.In consideration of A company’s high level of electronic information, the thesis provides online multi-attribute combinatorial auctions, at the same time, designs the online auction system and the corresponding carrier selection process according to the analysis of A company’s needs of transportation and distribution. This thesis sets up an indicator system and introduces six indicators:freight, punctuality, cargo damage rate, order response time, customer satisfaction rate and comprehensive quality. Using entropy method to calculate the weight value and making corresponding improvements to the model by considering the characteristics of combinatorial auctions model. The thesis establishes a multi-attribute combinatorial auctions model, makes the multi-objective decision into single-objective programming model and applies the sum of squares method to solve the allocation of winner biddings. A worked example based on actual situations of A company is given to prove the feasibility and effectiveness of this model.In view of the problems exist in A company’s carrier selection method, the thesis sets up a multi-attribute combinatorial auctions model, provides an effective method for the improvement of carrier selection as a reference for the further research of enterprise’s carrier selection.